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Comment by jonplackett | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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

Almost sounds more like a statement of fact checking than of offering an opinion (unless said by the first person, as was the case during the very first usage, in a bizarre "I am right" manner).

I think a mumbled uh hu is about the best we have for this.

That also can be used in the affirmative: "Wanna get food?" "Uh huh."

"Understood", or "got it" expresses acknowledgement without agreement.

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

I and many people I have worked with (all engineers, swes, etc) have been comfortable with using "Ack" (acknowledged) for this purpose. Sometimes we get funny responses when others aren't familiar with the intended meaning.

Another word you can use for this purpose is "copy."

'Got it'?

Whatever.

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)

Affirmative.

Just a couple too many syllables.

Ack

RST

In certain IRC contexts, it was common to see "syn".

This became "yt?" in the next generation, unfortunately.

Sure

Yup.

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