#50858
12/27/2001 1:52 AM
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Had to post this by itself (it comes from the end of the yourDictionary.com lists):
Most frequently spoken word on the Planet:
O.K. Still one of the few examples where a person's initial's live on to become a word. (In this case, antebellum president Martin Van Buren, who was born in Old Kinderhook, New York; his nickname, Old Kinderhook, quickly evolved to O.K.) An alternate derivation suggests a play on the dialectal pronunciations of "all correct" by editors of the Boston Post in 1839.
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#50859
12/27/2001 2:10 AM
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Posts: 3,409
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#50860
12/27/2001 3:37 PM
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Dear WO'N: It seems to me that I see it more often as OK, rather than O.K. Do you feel the periods are necessary, or preferable?
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#50862
12/27/2001 6:49 PM
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Posts: 13,858
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Bigger by far is Straight Dopes http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250While there peruse his archives, many of them are very funny, or sadistically unfunny as the couple on foreign bodies in orifices below the belt. (dead gerbils) I thought "fisting" was bad enough. (Dec 21, 2001)
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#50863
12/27/2001 10:51 PM
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On OK. I like it best without the punctuation. Both capitalized and in small case. OK? In mid-sentence I use ok small case sometimes. And since OK is for informal writing, I think it's up to the individual whether or not to use that punctuation, ok?
OK! I've gotten that off my chest.
dub
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#50864
12/27/2001 11:29 PM
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...and the OED claims that oll (or orl) korrect predates Old Kinderhook, who borrowed it:
From the detailed evidence provided by A. W. Read it seems clear that O.K. first appeared as a jocular alteration of the initial letters of all correct (i.e. orl korrect) in 1839, and that in 1840 it was used as an election slogan for ‘Old Kinderhook’ (see sense Ab). Thence by stages it made its way into general use. Other suggestions, e.g. that O.K. represents the Choctaw oke ‘it is’, or French au quai, or that it derives from a word in the West African language Wolof via slaves in the southern States of America, all lack any form of acceptable documentation.]
there, I've saved you the expense of buying all of those books.
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#50865
12/28/2001 12:34 AM
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Posts: 2,605
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Poster: Wordwind
Subject: Re: O . K .On OK. I like it best without the punctuation.I do not comment; I merely note. 
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#50866
12/28/2001 12:46 AM
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Dear Keiva: Isn't it a bit devious to change the subject heading from O.K. to OK, and then pretend Wordwind had erred?
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#50867
12/28/2001 12:51 AM
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Posts: 2,605
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no, dr. bill; please note that wordwind's original post (two above mine) was so clever as to use each variation. My header was phrased to indicate that my spelling preference, as hers, is to have no period. and please, no "negative pregnant" jokes Edit:1) Btw, bartleby, http://www.bartleby.com/61/12/O0051200.html, indicates that the proper "spelling" is without periods. "WORD HISTORY: OK is a quintessentially American term that has spread from English to many other languages. ... Originally spelled with periods ..." 2) Of course I was teasing, dr. bill, but not unfairly: my post quoted accurately.
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#50868
12/28/2001 1:07 AM
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It looked to me as though you were teasing her for having been inconsistent. She did not use the periods in her message.
I was tempted to refer to "full stops" but changed my mind.
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#50869
12/28/2001 2:49 AM
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Okay, everybody! So where'd the spelled-out version come from? And when was it first used? (don't know myself, just thinkin' aloud!) And, Wordwind, I've always used O.K. as OK without the periods, okay?  or is that a backwards knock-out? groanin' myself to save ya'll the trouble!
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#50870
12/28/2001 3:42 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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>So where'd the spelled-out version come from?
of course it's just a representation of the pronunciation -- Mencken in The American Language wrote "Woodrow Wilson is said... to use okeh in endorsing government papers." (E. Waugh spelt it "okey" in Brideshead Revisited.
Mencken, incidentally, discusses the origin of O.K. at length, presenting no less than ten possible etymologies and suggesting that it must have been in familiar use before 1840 (the date of the oll korrect story). in fact, the okeh spelling supposedly stems from a Choctaw word signifying "it is so", which is where Wilson picked it up for approving official papers!
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#50871
12/28/2001 10:42 AM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
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It is so. All Choctaw I am now.
Now, Keiva, I'm THICK here. You wrote, and please, no "negative pregnant" jokes...
WHAT pregnant jokes? I never heard a pregnant joke! What's so funny about pregnancy anyway, especially if you're suffering morning sickness? Come on! Tell one! I just hate being perpetually in the dark. Is this a guy thing?
Best regards,
Word Wrangler, at the OK Corral
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#50872
12/28/2001 4:01 PM
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For a negative pregnant joke, how about cartoon, possibly in New Yorker, of guy on front steps of maternity hospital, asking his very pregnant wife "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
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#50873
12/28/2001 9:23 PM
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This from Bartleby.com through OneLook. There's also one other entry there, Cambridge, that I can't open. Might provide a more thorough etymolgy (if that's possible):
SYLLABICATION:
o·key-do·key
ADJECTIVE &
ADVERB:
Informal OK.
ETYMOLOGY:
Reduplication of OK1.
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#50874
12/30/2001 2:32 PM
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The Associated Press Stylebook, used as arbiter by most newspapers, has this entry:
OK, OK'd, OK'ing, OKs Do not use okay
The bold and italic are as given in manual.
Okey-dokey?
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#50875
12/30/2001 2:51 PM
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Dear wow,
OK! I still, however, don't like okey dokey hyphenated, though I understand how it's come to be so.
Tangential note on Martin Van Buren. (He was an odd-looking man, I think.) When my kids learn the president chant, there is one point, during the memorization process, at which I can always predict a brain-breakdown. And that's when they've worked up to Andrew Johnson followed by Ulysses S. Grant. Each and every time, there are a good number of kids who will chant:
Andrew Johnson
Martin Van Buren, thereby raising Buren from the grave to succeed Johnson.
Care to guess why this error occurs each and every year?
Best regards,
Dub
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#50876
12/30/2001 3:03 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
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OK, OK'd, OK'ing, OKs
The OK'd I can see; you're eliding the e in the past tense marker -ed, but OK'ing? How does an influential style manual defend that supererogatory apostrophe?
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#50877
12/30/2001 5:27 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
Andrew Johnson
Martin Van Buren, thereby raising Buren from the grave to succeed Johnson.
Care to guess why this error occurs each and every year?
Perhaps because "Andrew Jackson" and "Andrew Johnson" sound and look very similar?
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#50878
12/30/2001 5:50 PM
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Posts: 10,542
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why, to avoid confusion with Th. O'King and the hymn All praise to thee, for thou, O King divine.
but what's so not OK about spelling okay out?
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#50879
12/30/2001 6:08 PM
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Posts: 6,296
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Dear JazzO',
You've got it! Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren.....on up to Andrew Johnson, Martin Van Buren. And poor ol' Ulysses S. Grant, with his hard name for most seven-year-olds to learn to pronounce, takes a bit of oblivion for a while. But we do bring him back, we really do. Curiously, Jackson was the 7th and Johnson was the 17th president. Just a trivial observation. OK?
WW
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