The history of 'OK' (2023)

Affirmative.

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.

Yup.

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)

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

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.

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

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

cee bee

ay tea em

eye pea

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

> and makes more sense than it being a misspelling

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

Easy solution: Just write "Oll Korrekt" everywhere.

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

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)

Ok

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.

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.

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.

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.