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N0KFQ > TODAY 23.03.08 09:30l 48 Lines 2240 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Mar 23
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From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@ALLUS
March 23, 1839
OK enters national vernacular
On this day in 1839, the initials "O.K." are first published in
The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for "oll
correct," a popular slang misspelling of "all correct" at the
time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of
Americans.
During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger,
educated circles to misspell words intentionally, then abbreviate
them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as
teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of
common words, such as "kewl" for "cool" or "DZ" for "these," the
"in crowd" of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they
abbreviated. Popular abbreviations included "KY" for "No use"
("know yuse"), "KG" for "No go" ("Know go"), and "OW" for all
right ("oll wright").
Of all the abbreviations used during that time, OK was propelled
into the limelight when it was printed in the Boston Morning Post
as part of a joke. Its popularity exploded when it was picked up
by contemporary politicians. When the incumbent president Martin
Van Buren was up for reelection, his Democratic supporters
organized a band of thugs to influence voters. This group was
formally called the "O.K. Club," which referred both to Van
Buren's nickname "Old Kinderhook" (based on his hometown of
Kinderhook, New York), and to the term recently made popular in
the papers. At the same time, the opposing Whig Party made use of
"OK" to denigrate Van Buren's political mentor Andrew Jackson.
According to the Whigs, Jackson invented the abbreviation "OK" to
cover up his own misspelling of "all correct."
The man responsible for unraveling the mystery behind "OK" was an
American linguist named Allen Walker Read. An English professor
at Columbia University, Read dispelled a host of erroneous
theories on the origins of "OK," ranging from the name of a
popular Army biscuit (Orrin Kendall) to the name of a Haitian
port famed for its rum (Aux Cayes) to the signature of a Choctaw
chief named Old Keokuk. Whatever its origins, "OK" has become one
of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of
America's greatest lingual exports.
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