The history of 'OK' (2023)

https://people.howstuffworks.com/history-ok.htm

by goles • 2 years ago

110 96 2 years ago

people.howstuffworks.com

I always find it odd when people track down the invention of something to one source when multiple people were using the same phrase around the same time.

Sure it's popularisation may have been fueled by a particular person or group but did they really invent it? Or did they refit an existing abbreviation to fit their purpose? Or was it just invented in parallel?

One explanation I have heard about "OK" is that it was an abbreviation invented by Greek migrant dock workers in the USA. Apparently they used to write the abbreviation "OK" on boxes that contained what they were supposed to contain. "ola kala" is a Greek phrase that basically means "everything good".

syndicatedjelly• 2 years ago

poochkoishi728• 2 years ago

In this instance, this is such an elegant, concise and multilayered response.

Simultaneously:

- "Let's be done with this statement."

- "What's the interesting point here?"

- "We chose a civil approach here, going with indifference to these string of words"

- "Look how great the word 'OK' is. Two letters to express all this."

pbj1968• 2 years ago

Did you know people had achieved manpowered flight before the Wright brothers? Can you name any of them? If you aren’t the wellspring of popularity then nobody cares.

SamBam4• 2 years ago

But do stories like the origin being "ola kala" have any actual primary-source evidence? If not, they're just old wives' tales.

This version has actual evidence. It has the first recorded use. It situates it in the context of the fad at the time. It shows that in the first usage the author included the expanded version because other people wouldn't know it. It shows how it was replied to be someone who had read the article.

I find it odd when someone replies to a piece of research with their own story that they believe simply because they heard it first.

gumboshoes• 2 years ago

That's a story with no evidence, though. The written records simply cannot support it. All we have is supposition or people quoting it to each other saying it was Greek whoevers but no unselfconscious uses of it in that context.

jcranmer• 2 years ago

Slang words tend to produce loads of folk etymologies that have little basis in reality. Partially, this is because slang words tend to be less visible in records that survive to the modern time. And also partially, etymology tends to be a field where people feel inclined to make stuff up that sounds right and these stories get passed along because feeling right is valued more highly than actually being right.

The proposed etymologies of OK fall into three main buckets:

* OK is an initialism for a misspelled variant of 'all correct'

* OK is a phonetic rendition of some phrase in $LANGUAGE (there are a few different such languages proposed)

* OK is an initialism for some phrase in $LANGUAGE (again, different phrases in different languages have been proposed)

Of these etymologies, the second bucket can be pretty thoroughly ruled out immediately: OK shows up in our sources first as an initialism, not 'okay', so it's not likely to be anything other than an initialism. As for deciding what it's an initialism of... well, "all correct" is actually the most reasonable on first guess because someone who is going to come up with a "just-so" story for a folk-etymology is likely to go for a phrase which actually initializes to OK rather than one which conspicuously doesn't, and thus someone advancing an "all correct" theory is likely to be able to point to evidence of its truth. Which we have.

CTDOCodebases2• 2 years ago

I understand evidence is important.

I guess the issue I have is how much certainty do we assign to whatever origin we attribute.

I guess we can say that the explanation in the article is the best guess with the available evidence but what do we do if the evidence is limited?

Take the example I gave. How many cardboard boxes were around when people decided to start hunting down the first instance of “OK”? What is the likely hood of someone photographing one of those boxes given the prevalence of photography at the time and the importance of a cardboard box?

dang2• 2 years ago

How 'OK' took over the world (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14533098 - June 2017 (99 comments)

I think there have been other threads as well?

f_allwein• 2 years ago

Not much of a thread, but yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17177657

dang2• 2 years ago

Ah - the covention is to link to past threads with (interesting) comments, because otherwise users click on the link expecting to find some and become grumpy when they're not there.

pfdietz• 2 years ago

Perhaps the way to look at this was that "ok" came not from the events that created it, but from the niche it filled. There must have been a need for the term or it would not have thrived and spread.

devilbunny2• 2 years ago

English has all manner of ways around the fact that we abandoned plural "you" around 1600 or so. Y'all, yinz, you-all, you guys. I grew up in the South, so it's "y'all" for me, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with "thou/thee" for singular and "you/ye" for plural second person. It just was victim to the euphemization treadmill until it fell out of common usage, so we had to reinvent it.

hatboat• 2 years ago

As an Australian, "youse" is the most common variation here. It's sometimes maligned as a bit lower-class/bogan, but it certainly fills a niche!

hahahacorn• 2 years ago

A deep knowledge of etymology, if nothing else, is useful for answering a 5 year old's infamous chain of "why?"s

Disregarding potential inaccuracies, I love stories like these. Not particularly sure why, but I'm sure someone has a post somewhere about why we're so obsessed with the history of _our_ mundane.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

I would posit it is less from native speakers but from those learning the language. When you grow up hearing/learning/using a word, you just use it. I don't really remember learning words and being told their etymology, but do remember learning some when taking a foreign language class in school.

Could be completely wrong though

quesera3• 2 years ago

Or from native speakers who subsequently learn Latin.

hencq• 2 years ago

I love them too. In a similar vein I learned just the other day that the verb 'escalate' only became in vogue after the invention of the escalator in the 1920s. I can't really pinpoint why either, but I think it has something to do with the surprisingly dumb or meme-y roots of such common words.

fireflash38• 2 years ago

https://www.etymonline.com/word/escalate#etymonline_v_32438

If anyone is curious. Used to be escalade, but after the formation of escalade+elevator=escalator, we never really looked back.

jonplackett2• 2 years ago

Is it me or does the final paragraph totally contradict itself?

It's not that it was needed to 'fill a gap' in any language. Before 1839, English speakers had 'yes,' 'good,' 'fine,' 'excellent,' 'satisfactory' and 'all right.' What OK provided that the others did not was neutrality, a way to affirm or to express agreement without having to offer an opinion.

That, as is then explained - response without judgement, is a really big and useful gap to fill.

wizzwizz4• 2 years ago

Affirmative.

mc32• 2 years ago

Just a couple too many syllables.

ubutler• 2 years ago

Also, I’m not too sure that saying ‘ok’ is to ‘affirm or to express agreement’. Sometimes it can be used to simply acknowledge that someone has said something, such as when you say ‘ok sure’ or ‘ok but’.

And if I am wrong, and it does mean to affirm, then doesn’t that by necessity mean that it involves ‘offering an opinion’? Affirmation and/or agreement is not neutral.

incompatible• 2 years ago

It's used in different contexts, including the original meaning of "all correct", which is apparently offering an opinion.

SilasX• 2 years ago

I've long thought that we need to create a new (short) word that exists solely so you can communicate that you got the message, but not indicate any position on it. Something like AROM (acknowledging receipt of message).

Of course, good luck keeping it in that semantic space even if you got it off the ground

SamBam4• 2 years ago

Yup.

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

Then I don't see "yes" as being opinionated or biased.

I'm assuming "OK" was needed because "yes" is otherwise used in so many contexts, including just as a nod to keep a conversation going, in no small part because of its neutrality. So a new word allows for more intentionality (which is important, and we still agree fills a really big gap)

causality0• 2 years ago

I've found it's often impossible to get keyboards like Swiftkey to stop autocorrecting "ok" to "OK". It's so irritating because while grammatically correct, it makes me look like a boomer in text conversations.

ClassyJacket2• 2 years ago

I've noticed this too but I just use the word 'okay' anyway. I mean, I'm not saying 'ock', I'm saying 'oh kay', so why shouldn't the spelling reflect that?

gerdesj2• 2 years ago

Or are tending towards m'kay!

doctor_eval• 2 years ago

My ghoti would like a word.

pushedx• 2 years ago

the first thing I do on any device is disable all forms of autocorrect

bigstrat2003• 2 years ago

What? Nobody cares if you say "ok" or "OK", dude.

DiggyJohnson• 2 years ago

Why the aggression?

ClassyJacket2• 2 years ago

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

ARE YOU SAYING THAT CAPITALIZATION DOESN'T MATTER ?

xg153• 2 years ago

Easy solution: Just write "Oll Korrekt" everywhere.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

just start using 'k' like the typical zillenial lazy/slang user

xg153• 2 years ago

"k" is hardly neutral though, it usually sends a pretty specific message...

gerdesj2• 2 years ago

Lighten up, old thing. Miri Webs says its all gravy.

You bother with your shift key and putting quotes around pertinent terms in HN comments. Hence, I'll deduce that you do care about grammar and presentation when random strangers from another country get to read it and comment. However, I'm also sure that you (and so do I) prefer a more relaxed presentation when dealing with your mates.

If the recipients know you then they know you! If not: who gives a shit?

Now, do tell what is wrong with boomers? ... 8)

nikolaj• 2 years ago

Shout out to anyone else on HN who grew up in Kinderhook NY!

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

Interesting. I had heard that it came from the Greek όλα καλά (ola kala) which literally means "all good" (and makes more sense than it being a misspelling).

SamBam4• 2 years ago

and makes more sense than it being a misspelling

Except for all the evidence in the article about how this was a trend.

insane_dreamer2• 2 years ago

correlation != causation

divbzero• 2 years ago

“Beginning in the summer of 1838, there developed in Boston a remarkable vogue of using abbreviations. It might well be called a craze,” wrote the famed etymologist Allen Walker Read.

Wait, you mean we weren’t the generation to make acronyms trendy? (AFAIK, WTF, LOL, JK, BRB…)

from-nibly• 2 years ago

Nope, we are just the weaklings that chose to spell things korectly

SamBam4• 2 years ago

I still remember "pwned" as a misspelling of "owned." Then of course there were all the other l33t spellings, but pwnd seemed to be the one most specifically about mistyping. Gen-Zers sometimes end statements with "Periodt." They also have lots of other phonetic ones, like "rizz," but that's more about the phonetics and less about the humor in misspelling.

b112• 2 years ago

A lot of office memos had short forms, and things such as IOU were common general use. IOU has to be up there for letter=word sound. Always loved that one.

In terms of generations, I remember lots of short forms on BBSes, initialisms like wtf were used on radio during WWII, it's a long history.

I suspect every written language used them. I seem to recall Roman latin use having some.

Saving writing with ink pot and feather quill, probably motivated better than keyboard presses.

edit: Wow! Just read the article, and saw this:

K.G. for "no go" (as if spelled "know go")

Pre-widescale internet, I watched a movie from the 1950s I think, maybe 30s.

They were discussing something, two male actors, black and white movie, and one purposed something. The other responded "that's cage-y".

At the time, and in context, it seemed like the "word" meant just "constricted" or some such. The guy was disgusted when he said it, and his body language and vertical cutting motion with his hand, indicated "no".

Yet I was confused enough, that when a dictionary didn't help, I stored it away. What an incredible pleasure to have an answer now, 30 years later.

Anyhow, it seems this was still popular enough to be in a 30s to 50s era movie.

Tijdreiziger• 2 years ago

In Japanese, ‘NG’ is used for ‘not good’.

(Japan seems to like its pseudo-English initialisms — BGM [background music], SNS [social network services], OP/ED [opening/ending], etc.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_Latin_alphabe...

aptly_yclept• 2 years ago

That's interesting to me, for I (a non-native speaker) am well familiar with the word 'cagey' from more contemporary movies and books. The dictionaries I checked list etymology as unknown, however. I'll see if I can't ask one about the "K.G." hypothesis.

andrewinardeer• 2 years ago

I would think that due to the rampant narcissism that has become a blight on society and which is way above and beyond any levels seen by any previous generation that the word 'selfie' is a newly coined word.

BryanLegend• 2 years ago

SuperNinKenDo• 2 years ago

I used to listen to the podcast for this site, but the problem is that any time they did a ppdcast on something I knew anything about, they would get things completely wrong. Not like, autistic special interest level stuff, but very, very basic stuff. If there was a popular misconception around, they would repeat it, even if the slightest bit of research would immediately dismantle it.

After that happened about 3 times I realised that their material was useless for things I knew anything about, and less than useless for anything I knew nothing about.

spacechild1• 2 years ago

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Gell-Mann_a...

elvircrn• 2 years ago

During my elementary school days, we were told by our English teacher that the origin was related to death toll reporting after a battle (presumably involving the Brits or Americans). Therefore, "0 K" would indicate that no soldiers were killed - an OK outcome. This went on to live in my head rent-free until today.

TacticalCoder• 2 years ago

Yup, heard the same. That "O K" was actually "0 K": Zero Killed.

But zero killed and all good are both OK with me!

userbinator• 2 years ago

It's interesting to note that its opposite, "NG" ("no good"), never seemed to have much popularity, but I've seen it show up increasingly often within the past few years.

LeoPanthera• 2 years ago

I see it far more in Japan than I do in the US or UK.

hunter2_6• 2 years ago

NG was (is?) popular Army slang, and American soldiers brought it to Okinawa. From there it spread throughout Japan, leading to its inclusion (stylized the same as OK) in emoji sets, which are historically Japanese.

https://emojipedia.org/ng-button

quesera3• 2 years ago

I'm glad to hear NG is increasing in use!

I've used it for decades in all sorts of contexts. I've converted a few people!

My life has included a lot of equipment, hardware, software, things that needed labeling, I reflect.

Also I am not good about throwing broken things away, thinking maybe I'll want to salvage parts from it later. So a sticker (in recent decades, blue painters tape) with "19981105 NG" becomes a very useful thing, eventually.

sublinear• 2 years ago

Last time I saw NG anywhere was on a fax machine!

tempodox2• 2 years ago

That's probably because it should have been “K.G.” (as if spelled “know good”).

emmelaich2• 2 years ago

My favourite theory is that it comes from 'hoc' in Latin. One of the many words for yes.

That meant there are similar words for yes in other languages. See also Langue d'Oc / languedoc.

QuantumG• 2 years ago

Related: Alright is one word.

So very often it's written "all right" by folks writing the subtitles.

hallway_monitor• 2 years ago

A common mistake I see: Every day is two words, everyday is strictly an adjective e.g. an everyday occurrence.

hunter2_6• 2 years ago

The vast majority of reputable sources that appear via search engine say that alright is the informal version and all right is the formal version.

Let's say that the latter is indeed an overcorrection and alright is the correct version; is the first syllable not actually referring to the notion of everything i.e. all -- it's some other prefix?

SoftTalker• 2 years ago

a'ight.

hunter2_6• 2 years ago

Taking the mystery of OK one step further:

Spelling out single letters phonetically is fairly common (tee fitting, wye adaptor, em dash, queue/cue, and the entire Greek alphabet) but it's very rare for multi-letter initialisms. The only others I can think of are deejay (disk jockey) and emcee (master of ceremonies). But okay, defying all odds as usual, got there!

Kye• 2 years ago

cee bee

ay tea em

eye pea

zee (or zed) pea em if you're into Stargate

hunter2_6• 2 years ago

The words (space-delimited) that you cited are each representing single letters, which I mentioned are popular. It's the compound words (deejay, emcee, okay) representing multiple letters that are rare.

tempodox2• 2 years ago

Cultural history never gets old for me.

…but not in everyday speech as it was "slangy."

That hurdle has completely vanished, as by now we speak nothing but slang any more.

hanche2• 2 years ago

Okay, so that raises the next question: What about “A-OK”? Apparently much used by astronauts in the early space flight era. Does it have older roots? It seems to have fallen completely out of fashion.

ErigmolCt2• 2 years ago

I try not to use 'OK.' For some reason, my grandmother always encouraged me not to do so. I feel her disapproving gaze every time I say 'OK'

The history of 'OK' (2023)

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