Okay

For other uses, see Okay (disambiguation).

"O.K." redirects here. For other uses, see OK (disambiguation).

"Okay" (also spelled "OK," "O.K.") is a colloquial English word denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment. "Okay" has frequently turned up as a loanword in many other languages. As an adjective, "okay" means "adequate," "acceptable" ("this is okay to send out"), "mediocre" often in contrast to "good" ("the food was okay"); it also functions as an adverb in this sense. As an interjection, it can denote compliance ("Okay, I will do that"), or agreement ("Okay, that's good"). As a verb and noun it means "assent" ("The boss okayed the purchase," and, "The boss gave his okay to the purchase.") It can also be used with appropriate voice tone—such as sarcasm or a questioning tone—to show doubt or to seek confirmation, assent and approval ("Okaay..?" or "Is that okay?").

There is no consensus on the origins of "okay".

Earliest documented examples

The earliest recorded claimed usage of okay is a 1790 court record from Sumner County, Tennessee, discovered in 1859 by a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam, in which Andrew Jackson apparently said:

proved a bill of sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for an uncalled good, which was O.K.^[1]

What is widely regarded as the earliest known example of the modern "ok" being set down on paper is a quintessential "we arrived ok" notation in the hand-written diary of William Richardson going from Boston to New Orleans in 1815, about a month after the Battle of New Orleans. One entry says "we traveled on to N. York where we arrived all well, at 7 P.M." By most reckonings a later similar entry uses "ok" in place of "all well": "Arrived at Princeton, a handsome little village, 15 miles from N Brunswick, ok & at Trenton, where we dined at 1 P.M."^[2]

The original "ok &" was edited to read "o.k. and" in the print publication and that rendering was widely accepted at the time. H. L. Mencken considered it "very clear that 'o. k.' is actually in the manuscript." The editor of American Speech noted that this use of "o.k." was "likely to become a locus classicus of the expression."^[3] H.L. Mencken later recanted his endorsement of the expression in favor of one espoused by those who say that "O.K." was used no earlier than 1839. Mencken described the diary entry as a misreading of the author's self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h[andsome] before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind.^[4]

Allen Walker Read identified the earliest known use of O.K. in print as 1839, in the March 23 edition of the Boston Morning Post (an American newspaper). The announcement of a trip by the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society (a "frolicsome group" according to Read) received attention from the Boston papers. Charles Gordon Greene wrote about the event using the line that is widely regarded as the first instance of this strain of okay, complete with gloss:

The above is from the Providence Journal, the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing "through the city" of Providence.—We said our brethren were going to New York in the Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday. The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.^{[citation needed]}

This apparently resulted from a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s. The abbreviation in this case is from the misspelled "oll korrect."

Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print. Seven instances were accompanied ("glossed") with variations on "all correct" such as "oll korrect" or "ole kurreck", but five appeared with no accompanying explanation, suggesting that the word was expected to be well known to readers and possibly in common colloquial use at the time.

A year later, supporters of the American Democratic political party claimed during the 1840 United States presidential election that it stood for "Old Kinderhook," a nickname for a Democratic presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, NY. "'Vote for OK' was snappier than using his Dutch name."^[5] In response, Whig opponents attributed OK, in the sense of "Oll Korrect," to Andrew Jackson's bad spelling. The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been a critical event in okay's history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States.

James Pyle, inventor of "Pyle's Pearline" purchased by Procter & Gamble in 1914 and renamed "Ivory Snow," placed an ad in the New York Times, October 23, 1862 which refers to James Pyle's O.K. Soap. The New York Times obituary of James Pyle dated January 21, 1900 says "Brought O.K. Into Popularity." The obituary states "He was the first to utilize in advertisements the letters OK in their business significance of all correct. He had the original use of these letters by Stonewall Jackson as an endorsement and was struck by their catchiness. By his extensive employment of them he probably did more than any other person to raise them to the dignity of a popular term and an established business institution."

However, and importantly for one candidate etymology, earlier documented examples exist of African slaves in America using phonetically identical or strikingly similar words in a similar sense to okay. (See Wolof: waw-kay, below.)

Etymology

See also: List of proposed etymologies of OK

Various etymologies have been proposed for okay, but none has been unanimously agreed upon. Most are generally regarded to be unlikely or anachronistic.^{[citation needed]}

There are four proposed etymologies which have received material academic support since the 1960s. They are:

1. Initials of Oll Korrect, a "facetious alteration" of all correct.^[6]
2. Initials of "Old Kinderhook" a nickname for President Martin Van Buren which was a reference to Van Buren's birthplace Kinderhook, NY.
3. Choctaw word okeh or hoke
4. Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke

Oll Korrect has been extensively discussed by Allen Walker Read, although the primary purpose of those discussions was to promote "Old Kinderhook"; the two differ materially from other candidates in that they:

• Have widespread verifiable pre-existing documented usage,
• Have verifiable geographic overlaps with okay's first documented instances,
• Have equivalent meanings,
• Do not fit over-neatly into contemporaneous or subsequent political or cultural circumstances, and
• Are remarkably similar in pronunciation to okay (having due regard to the danger of false coincidence, which is endemic to colloquial etymology)

One theory of derivation is that it was a corruption from the speech of the large number of descendants of Scottish and Ulster Scots (Scots-Irish) immigrants to North America, of the common Scots phrase "och aye" ("oh yes").^[7] Another postulation, that it derives from the Lakota word "Hokaheh" (also anglicised as "Hoka Hey" and "Hoka Hay") which has many popular mistranslations but which is probably most accurately rendered as "Let's go!", is very unlikely, as contact with the Lakota people was not really established at the time that "okay" or "ok" was first noted. A third suggestion is the loan of the Greek phrase Όλα Καλά or Ola Kala, meaning "All Good".^[8]

Oll Korrect

This etymology, based on Read's extensive discussion, became widely known following his publications in 1963–1964.

Allen Walker Read, revisiting and refuting his own work of 20 years earlier, contributed a major survey of the early history of okay in a series of six articles in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]} He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding okay and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself.

A key observation is that, at the time of its first appearance in print, a broader fad existed in the United States of "comical misspellings" and of forming and employing acronyms and initialisms. These were apparently based on direct phonetic representation of (some) people's colloquial speech patterns. Examples at the time included K.Y. for "know yuse" ("no use") and N.C. for "'nuff ced." ("enough said", commonly written today as "nuff said")^[15] This fad falls within the historical context, before universal "free" public education in America, where the poorly educated lower-classes of society were often easy entertainment for those who found fun in their non-universal language, epitomized by colloquial words and home-taught or self-deduced phonetic spellings. Motivated by this context, Noah Webster's dictionaries were published in 1806, 1828 and 1840, which both nationalized language usage and highlighted non-universal language by its introduction of unique American spellings, such as program rather than programme.

The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 ... OFM, "our first men," and used expressions like NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of okay was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."^[16]

The general fad may have existed in spoken or informal written U.S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. OK's original presentation as "all correct" was later varied with spellings such as "Oll Korrect" or even "Ole Kurreck." Deliberate word play was associated with the acronym fad and was a yet broader contemporary American fad.

The chief strength of this etymology is its clear written record. A problem with this etymology is the implication that common usage was driven by the written appearance of a geographically and socially isolated slang term that was alien to the rest of the country. While appearing in written form often spreads and expands the usage of colloquial terms, it is rare for a single instance of written speech to make a term colloquial. The relatively slow take-up of the term by other English-speaking countries illustrates this pattern.

Old Kinderhook

Read's series of papers offered an interesting and memorable discussion of "Oll Korrect," but the purpose of those papers was to support his New York City based "Old Kinderhook" etymology referring to Martin Van Buren's residence in Kinderhook, New York. Read had formulated that etymology about twenty years earlier,^[17] but it had come under fire.^[18]

Van Buren was not by any means known as "Old Kinderhook" in general usage, and Read offered only two instances of the use of "O.K." that mentioned "Old Kinderhook." One was an 1840 ad for a breast pin celebrating Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. The other was a facetious use as part of a gag^[19] to take a swipe at the Whigs; indeed, to take the use of the abbreviations in that gag seriously is to miss the whole point. Many linguists, including the editors of The Dictionary of American English and the Oxford English Dictionary found these uses no more significant than any of other uses of "O.K." over the previous year and a half. They considered its use in the lapel pin ad an "afterthought" dropped into an ad that was essentially a celebration of Jackson and the frontier associations of the expression.^[20]

Read countered, however, that the ad made it evident "that the expression was strange and new at that time," that the earlier uses of "O.K." in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, New Orleans, New York, etc. – including the humorous uses of "Oll Korrect" – were "not the real thing, but anticipative of the real thing."^[21] He said that, regardless of the surface meaning of those earlier uses, their true, although secret and cabalist reference, was to Van Buren's residence,^[20] and that "Old Kinderhook" established the trajectory of "O.K." as it "rocketed across the American linguistic sky."^[22]

Read's etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is offered without reservation in most dictionaries.^[23] Modern dictionaries almost invariably offer an etymology that credits the historical use of "Oll Korrect", and some also discuss the apparent wider popularization of "O.K." as a product of the nearly contemporaneous "Old Kinderhook" usage.^[24]

Choctaw: okeh

Another proposed induction of okay involves English-speaking Americans taking up a locally heard American Indian word.

The Choctaw expression "okeh" is still occasionally used, sometimes in rather unexpected contexts.^[25][26][27] The song "All Mixed Up" written by Pete Seeger and recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1964 includes the verse

You know this language that we speak,
is part German, Latin and part Greek
Celtic and Arabic all in a heap,
well amended by the people in the street.
Choctaw gave us the word "okay"…

The Choctaw etymology is not generally accepted today. For example, The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang has four separate entries for "O.K." and says that "okeh" is the obsolete equivalent of each of them. It also says that "okeh" ('it is indeed') is a Choctaw expression. But it nevertheless says that "[w]ithout concrete evidence of a prior and established English borrowing from Choctaw-Chickasaw" any "derivational claims" about a Choctaw etymology are as "gratuitous" as those of the Liberian Djabo "O-ke," the Mandingo "O ke," or the Ulster Scots "Ough, aye!"^[28]

African origins

It has been suggested that "okay" derives from an African language, popularized through usage of African slaves in America. Documented instances exist well before 1839 of slaves being quoted phonetically using words strikingly similar to the now common usage and meaning of okay. For example, in 1784:

Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe;...^[29]

And a Jamaican planter's diary of 1816 records a negro as saying:

Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him.^[30]

Possible origins that have been suggested are the Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke. However, there is apparently no concrete evidence linking the American usages with any particular African language, and the etymology is not generally accepted today.^[28]

Spelling variations

Whether this word is printed as OK, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage provide no consensus.^[31]

Variation	Where used/Origins
oki or oky	A quick way of saying okay
okeh	An alternative English spelling, no longer common.[32] Also see Okeh Records.
kay or 'kay	Notably used in Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny as a filler word by the maniacal Captain Queeg.[citation needed]
k or kk	Commonly used in instant messaging, or in SMS messages. Before the days of SMS, K was used as a Morse code prosign for "okay".
'mkay, m'kay, mkay, or mk	In use long before, but popularized by Mr. Van Driessen in Beavis and Butt-head and Mr. Mackey in South Park.[citation needed]
Okey kokkey	Used frequently by Giovanni Capello from Mind Your Language.[citation needed]
Okie dokie	Popularly known at least by the 1930s in "The Little Rascals" (Oki doki). The phrase can be extended further, e.g. "Okie dokie (ala) pokie / smokie / artichokie / karaoke," etc.[citation needed]
okej	Used in Poland, although ok is more common in written language; sometimes oki is said.[33]
ôkê	Used in Vietnam; okey also used, but ok more commonly.[34]
okei	Sometimes used in Norwegian, Icelandic and Latvian. Quite common in Estonian and Finnish.[citation needed]
Okai	Used in the Norwegian language.
okej	Used in Swedish, Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian and sometimes Latvian; ok also used, but less common.[35]
oké	Used in Hungarian. OK, O.K., ok (especially in SMS), o.k., okés, okézsoké are also commonly used; oxi and oksa was in sporadic use in the 1980s, now rare.[citation needed]
oké	Used in Dutch. okee, ok and okay are also used, but are less common in the formal written language.[36]
okey	Especially in Latin American Spanish and Turkish. Not uncommon in Swedish.[citation needed]
occhei	Humorous phonetic translation in Italy.[citation needed](Why is it humorous?)]
okaj	Sometimes used in the Danish language
ochei	Alternative spelling in Italy, used without any humorous intent at all by Leo Ortolani in his comic "Rat-Man" published by Marvel Italia.[citation needed](and why would it be considered humorous?)]
ookoo	Used in Finland. Pronounced the same way as "OK", but spelled like the pronunciation of the letters.[citation needed]
oukej	Used in Czech and Slovak. Pronounced as the English OK. When written OK, it is pronounced [o:ka:]. Neither version recognized as official.
oquei	Phonetic translation to Latin American Spanish.[citation needed]
okey or ok	Used in Romanian. Also used is ochei which is a humorous way of reading the word phonetically.[citation needed][citation needed](and why is it humorous?)]
óla kalá (όλα καλά) or O.K	Used in Greek. The abbreviation is pronounced as the English OK.
okely dokely or okely dokely do	Variation of OK used by the character Ned Flanders in the television show "The Simpsons"
ob kb	Used by Bill Cosby in his stand up titled "Bill Cosby Himself", in which he describes receiving novocain while at the dentist and is unable to speak properly.

Usage

Okay can mean "all right" or "satisfactory." For example, "I hope the children are okay" means "I hope the children are all right"; "I think I did OK in the exam" means "I think I did well, but not perfect, on the exam"; and "he is okay" means "he is good," or "he is well," depending on context.

Okay meaning "all right" can be used as the stand-alone question Okay? asking if there are any problems or confusion. This question can also be used as an informal greeting, as in "Okay, Jack?" equivalent to "How are you, Jack?"

Depending on context and inflection, okay can also imply mediocrity. For example: "The concert was just okay."

Okay can be used as an adjective or adverb: "He ran an OK race", "He did OK."

Okay can be used as an affirmative answer to a question or to express agreement with a statement, similar in both cases to "Yes."

Okay is sometimes used merely to acknowledge a question without giving an affirmation. For example: "You're going to give back the money that you stole, right?" "Okay."

Saying okay in a sarcastic or questioning tone or elongating the word can indicate that the person one is talking to is considered crazy and/or exasperatingly stubborn in their view. "I really saw a UFO last night!" "Okay..."

Okay! can also be used as an exclamation in place of words like "enough!" or "stop!"

Okay can be a noun or verb meaning approval. "Did you get the supervisor's okay?" "The boss okayed the proposal."

Okay has multiple uses in public speaking. As an interjection at the opening of a speech, lecture, or reading, okay is used to call for the audience's attention and to signal that the speaker is about to begin. Similarly, it can be used as a section break in the middle of speech to mark a shift in topic. Finally, okay can be used at the end of a speech, lecture, or explanation to request listener feedback, similar to "Are you with me?" or "Do you understand?" Based on context and convention, this usage can be seen as asking for various responses ranging from simple, silent headshaking or nodding to full, detailed questions or rebuttals.

When used in phone texting or short message system (SMS), "Okay" is occasionally truncated to a single "k".

International usage

In Brazil and Mexico, as well as in other Latin American countries, the word is pronounced just as it is in English and is used very frequently. Although pronouncing it the same, Spanish speakers often spell the word "okey" to conform with the pronunciation rules of the language. In Brazil, it may be also pronounced as "ô-kei". In Portugal, it is used with its Portuguese pronunciation and sounds something like "ókâi" (similar to the English pronunciation but with the "ó" sounding like the "o" in "lost" or "top").

Arabic speakers also use the word (أوكي) widely, particularly in areas of former British occupation like Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, and Palestine but also all over the Arab world due to the prevalence of American cinema and television. It is pronounced just as it is in English but is very rarely seen in Arabic newspapers and formal media.

In Israel, the word okay is common as an equivalent to the Hebrew words בסדר [b'seder] ('in order') and טוב [tov] ('good'). It is written as it sounds in English אוקיי.

It is used in Japan and Korea in a somewhat restricted sense, fairly equivalent to "all right." Okay is often used in colloquial Japanese as a replacement for 大丈夫 (daijōbu "all right")　or いい (ii "good") and often followed by です (desu — the copula).

In Chinese, the term "好" (hǎo; literally: "good"), can be modified to fit most of usages of okay. For example, "好了" (hao le) closely resembles the interjection usage of okay. The "了" indicates a change of state, in this case it indicates the achievement of consensus. Likewise, "OK" is commonly transformed into "OK了" (OK le) when communicating with foreigners or with fellow Cantonese speaking people in at least Hong Kong and possibly to an extent, other regions of China.^[37] Other usages of Okay such as "I am okay" can be translated as "我还好." In Hong Kong, movies or dramas set in modern times use the term "ok" as part of the sprinkling of English included in otherwise Cantonese dialog. In Mandarin, it is also, somewhat humorously, used in the "spelling" of the word for karaoke, "卡拉OK," pronounced "kah-lah-oh-kei" (Mandarin does not natively have a syllable with the pronunciation "kei"). On the computer, okay is usually translated as "确定," which means "confirm" or "confirmed."

In Taiwan, it is frequently used in various sentences, popular among but not limited to younger generations. This includes the aforementioned "OK了" (Okay le), "OK嗎" (Okay ma), meaning "Is it okay?" or "OK啦" (Okay la), a strong, persuading affirmative, as well as the somewhat tongue-in-cheek explicit yes/no construction "O不OK?" (O bu Okay), "Is it okay or not?."

In France, OK is used for say to someone we are agree with him, generally followed by a french sentence (OK, d'accord for OK, right)

In the Philippines "okay lang" is a common expression, literally meaning "just okay" or "just fine." They also use it in sms but with the letter "k" only which means okay also. Sometimes spelled as okey.

In Malay, it is frequently used with the emphatic suffix "lah": OK-lah.

In Vietnamese, it is spelled "Ô kê"

In India it is often used after a sentence to mean "did you get it?", often not regarded politely, for example, "I want this job done, okay?" or at the end of a conversation (mostly on the phone) followed by "bye" as in, "Okay, bye."

In Nepal "thik cha" refers to as okay.

In Germany, it is spelled and pronounced in the same way as in English. The meaning ranges from acknowledgement to describing something neither good nor bad, same as in US/UK usage.

In Maldivian Okay is used in different ways, often used to agree with something, more often used while departing from a gathering "Okay Dahnee/Kendee".

Gesture

Main article: A-ok

In the United States and much of Europe a related gesture is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers.^[38] It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first. The gesture was popularized in America in 1836 as a symbol to support then Presidental canidate Martin Van Buren. This was because Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, derived from his hometown of Kinderhook, NY, had the initials O K.^[38] Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures.

Computers

A typical modal dialog box with prominent OK button

A Facebook modal dialog box using the spelling Okay

OK is used to label buttons in modal dialog boxes such as error messages or print dialogs, indicating that the user must press the button to accept the contents of the dialog box and continue. It is often placed next to a Cancel button which allows the user to dismiss the dialog box without accepting its contents. When a modal dialog box contains only one button, it is almost always labeled "OK" by convention and default. In this usage, it is usually rendered to the screen in upper case without punctuation: OK, rather than O.K., Okay, or Ok. The OK button can probably be traced to user interface research done for the Apple Lisa.^[39] However, modern user interface guidelines prefer to avoid modal dialog boxes if possible, and use more specific verbs, such as Continue, to label their action buttons instead of the generic OK.^[40]

PLATO normally responded to user input with ok or no.^{[citation needed]}

PRIMOS, the operating system that ran on Prime computers, had a command interpreter which would print OK to indicate a command could be entered.^{[citation needed]}

On the Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (1980), there was an OK> prompt, which indicated that the Color Computer was ready to accept commands.^{[citation needed]}

Many IBM PC compatible computers from the 1980s onwards performed a memory check during start-up. A counter showed the verified memory during the operation, sometimes suffixed with OK.^{[citation needed]}

Some programming language interpreters such as BASIC and Forth print ok when ready to accept input from the keyboard.^{[citation needed]} This ok prompt is used on Sun, Apple, and other computers with the Forth-based Open Firmware (OpenBoot). The appearance of ok in inappropriate contexts on these systems is the subject of some humor.^[41]

In HTTP, the HyperText Transfer Protocol, upon which the World Wide Web is based, a successful response from the server is defined as OK (with the numerical code 200 as specified in RFC 2616). The Session Initiation Protocol also defines a response, 200 OK, which conveys success for most requests (RFC 3261).

Some Linux distributions, including those based on Red Hat, display boot progress on successive lines on-screen which include [ OK ].

Notes

1. ^ George W. Stimpson. (1934) "Nuggets Of Knowledge"
2. ^ Heflin, Woodford A. (1941) "'O. K.', But What Do We Know about It?". American Speech, 16 (2), 90.
3. ^ Wait, William Bell (1941) "Richardson's 'O. K.' of 1815". American Speech, 16 (2), 86–136.
4. ^ Mencken, H.L. (1956) The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States. p.275.
5. ^ The Economist, 2002.10.24, "Allen Read, obituary"
6. ^ "OK". Merriam-Webster. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/okay. Retrieved 2011-01-15. 
7. ^ Read, Allen Walker (February 1964). "The Folklore of "O. K."". American Speech (Duke University Press) 39 (1): 5–25. doi:10.2307/453922. JSTOR 453922. 
8. ^ Weber, Robert (April 1942). "A Greek O. K.". American Speech (Duke University Press) 17 (2, Part 1): 127–128.
9. ^ Read, Allen W. (1963) The first stage in the history of "O.K.". American Speech, 38 (1), 5–27.
10. ^ Read, Allen W. (1963). The second stage in the history of "O.K.". American Speech, 38 (2), 83–102.
11. ^ Read, Allen W. (1963). Could Andrew Jackson spell?. American Speech, 38 (3), 188–195.
12. ^ Read, Allen W. (1964). The folklore of "O.K.". American Speech, 39 (1), 5–25.
13. ^ Read, Allen W. (1964). Later stages in the history of "O.K.". American Speech, 39 (2), 83–101.
14. ^ Read, Allen W. (1964). Successive revisions in the explanation of "O.K.". American Speech, 39 (4), 243–267.
15. ^ Fay, Jim. "In a Nutshell: The Etymology of "OK"". http://www.illinoisprairie.info/NutshellOK.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-06. 
16. ^ Cecil Adams, What does "OK" stand for?
17. ^ Read, A.W. (1941, July 19). "The Evidence on 'O.K.'," Saturday Review of Literature.
18. ^ Heflin, W.A. (1962). 'O.K.' and its incorrect etymology. American Speech, 37 (4).
19. ^ Allan Metcalf (18 February 2011). "How 'OK' took over the world". BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12503686. Retrieved 2010-02-22. "... How this weak joke .." 
20. ^ ^{a b} Read, "Successive Revisions," 257.
21. ^ Read, "Successive Revisions," 252, 254.
22. ^ Read, "Second Stage," 102.
23. ^ Given the lag time between preparation of entries and actual publication of any dictionary, for instance the 1968 edition of an American dictionary published only a few years following Read's papers of 1963-64 continued to state "first used in name of the Democratic O.K. club (earliest recorded meeting March 24, 1840), in which O.K. is abbrev. of Old Kinderhook". Mc Kechnie, J.L. (1968). Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, Second Edition, 1245 [Simon & Schuster].
24. ^ Online edition of American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language [Houghton Mifflin]
25. ^ Boice, Judith (2007) Menopause with Science and Soul: A Guidebook for Navigating the Journey, 52.
26. ^ Lerman, Philip (2007) Dadditude: How a Real Man Became a Real Dad, 238.
27. ^ Belmond, C. A. (2008) A Rather Curious Engagement, 38.
28. ^ ^{a b} Lighter, Jonathon, (1994). The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, 708.
29. ^ J. F. D. Smyth. (1784) A Tour in the United States of America (London, 1784), 1:118–21
30. ^ David Dalby (Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, U of London). (1971) "The Etymology of O.K.," The Times, 14 January 1971
31. ^ "I'm OK, you're okay". Grammarphobia. 2008-09-11. http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/09/im-ok-youre-okay.html. Retrieved 2011-06-12. 
32. ^ "Okeh as variant spelling of "okay"". Thefreedictionary.com. 1928-06-28. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/okeh. Retrieved 2011-06-12. 
33. ^ (Polish) PWN.ok
34. ^ Luong, Ngoc MD. Personal interview by Nu Alpha Pi. 2010 April 13.
35. ^ (Swedish) Aftonbladet.se
36. ^ (Dutch) Taaladvies.net
37. ^ 3 mins and 37 secs Youtube.com
38. ^ ^{a b} Armstrong, Nancy & Melissa Wagner. (2003) Field Guide to Gestures: How to Identify and Interpret Virtually Every Gesture Known to Man. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.
39. ^ "Apple user interface designers pick ''OK''". Folklore.org. 1980-07-17. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Do_It.txt&topic=Lisa. Retrieved 2011-06-12. 
40. ^ "Microsoft Windows Vista user interface guidelines for dialog box buttons". Msdn2.microsoft.com. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa511268.aspx#commitButtons. Retrieved 2011-06-12. 
41. ^ "USENIX - LISA 99 - The C Days of Y2K". USENIX. November 23, 1999. http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/lisa99/y2k.html. Retrieved 2011-02-21. 

References

• Beath, Paul R. (1946). 'O.K.' in radio sign language. American Speech, 21 (3), 235.
• Cassidy, Frederic G. (1981). OK — is it African?. American Speech, 58 (4), 269–273.
• Dalby, David. (1971, January 8). O.K., A.O.K. and O KE. New York Times, pp. L-31/4-6.
• Degges, Mary. (1975). The etymology of OK again. American Speech, 50 (3/4), 334–335.
• Eubanks, Ralph T. (1960). The basic derivation of 'O.K.' American Speech, 35 (3), 188–192.
• Greco, Frank A. (1975). The etymology of OK again. American Speech, 50 (3/4), 333–334.
• Heflin, Woodford A. (1941). 'O.K.,' but what do we know about it?. American Speech, 16 (2), 87–95.
• Heflin, Woodford A. (1962). 'O.K.' and its incorrect etymology. American Speech, 37 (4), 243–248.
• Levin, Harry; & Gray, Deborah. (1983). The Lecturer's OK. American Speech, 58 (3), 195–200.
• Matthews, Albert. (1941). A note on 'O.K.'. American Speech, 16 (4), 256–259.
• Mencken, H. L. (1936). The American language (4th ed., pp. 206–207). New York: Knopf.
• Mencken, H. L. (1942). 'O.K.,' 1840. American Speech, 17 (2), 126–127.
• Mencken, H. L. (1945). The American language: Supplement I (pp. 269–279). New York: Knopf.
• Mencken, H. L. (1949, October 1). The life and times of O.K. New Yorker, pp. 57–61.
• McMillan, James B. (1942). 'O.K.,' a comment. American Speech, 17 (2), 127.
• Pound, Louise. (1942). Some folk-locutions. American Speech, 17 (4), 247–250.
• Pound, Louise. (1951). Two queries: Usages of O.K. American Speech, 26 (3), 223.
• Pyles, Thomas. (1952). 'Choctaw' okeh again: A note. American Speech, 27 (2), 157–158.
• Read, Allen W. (1941, July 19). The evidence on O.K.. Saturday Review of Literature, pp. 3–4, 10–11.
• Rife, J. M. (1966). The early spread of "O.K." to Greek schools. American Speech, 41 (3), 238.
• Wait, William B. (1941). Richardson's 'O.K.' of 1815. American Speech, 16 (2), 85–86, 136.
• Walser, Richard. (1965). A Boston "O.K." poem in 1840. American Speech, 40 (2), 120–126.
• Weber, Robert. (1942). A Greek O.K. American Speech, 17 (2), 127–128.
• Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Merriam-Webster, 1989.

Further reading

• Metcalf, Allan. (2011). OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-537793-4

External links

• Where did OKAY come from?
• The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
• Ok. Let's continue.
• Most Recognized Word on the Planet: OK or O.K. or Okay
• Origin of the Word OK
• NPR: The Origin of OK (audio)
• OK/OKAY- Exhibition at the Grey Art Gallery, Swiss Institute, New York University
• FAQ: "OK"
• BBC: How 'OK' took over the world. Retrieved 18 February 2011.