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:''For other uses, see OK and Okay (disambiguation).''
'Okay' is a term of approval, assent, or acknowledgment, often written as 'OK' or 'O.K.'. This is also known as AOK. When used to describe the quality of a thing, it denotes acceptability. However, its usage can also be strongly approving; as with most slang, its usage is determined by context.
The historical record shows that O.K. appeared as an abbreviation for "oll korrect" (a conscious misspelling of "all correct") in Boston newspapers in 1839, and was reinterpreted as "Old Kinderhook" in the 1840 United States presidential election. Because it is a recent word born of word play, and because it is so widely used, O.K. has also invited many folk etymologies. These competing theories are not supported by the historical written record, except in that folk and joke etymologies influenced the true history of the word. Since the 19th century, the word has spread around the world, the ''okay'' spelling of it first appearing in British writing in the 1860s. Spelled out in full in the 20th century, 'okay' has come to be in everyday use among English speakers, and borrowed by non-English speakers.
Allen Walker Read conclusively documented the early history of the abbreviation ''O.K.'', now also spelled ''okay'', in a series of six articles in the journal ''American Speech'' in 1963 and 1964.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later it spread to the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding O.K. and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself.
The first printed examples of O.K. can be found in the Boston newspapers of 1839 as part of a broader fad of forming and employing acronyms and initialisms, many of them barbarous. Other examples at the time included G.T.T. for "gone to Texas" and K.Y. for "know yuse". The general fad may have existed in spoken or informal written American English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. O.K. was intended as a misspelling of "all correct"; in the first few years it was often published with this gloss. (Note that gloss indicates the spread of a new word.) The gloss was sometimes varied with degraded spelling 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. In this first phase, O.K. was spread with the acronym fad from Boston to other American cities.
The first recorded appearance in the first phase was in the ''Boston Morning Post'' on March 23, 1839, in the following passage (presumably written by editor Charles Gordon Greene).
: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.
In a second phase, O.K. was boosted by the 1840 presidential election, and thus marked to outlast the acronym fad from which it came. Democratic supporters of candidate Martin Van Buren equated "Oll Korrect" with "Old Kinderhook", which was a nickname for Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, NY. In response, Whig opponents attributed O.K., in the sense of "Oll Korrect", to Andrew Jackson's bad spelling. Thus, the election popularized both O.K. and a folk etymology that the acronym came from Andrew Jackson.
O.K. spread across the United States over the next two decades, and probably as far as Jamaica by 1848. The Civil War cemented its use, as much by confirming to American speakers that it was widely understood as by spreading it yet further. In the second half of the 19th century it spread to England and many other countries. In England it was first viewed as an improper Americanism, but it became widely accepted between the first and second World Wars.
The wordplay origin of O.K. invited folk etymology and joke etymology from the beginning. Eventually there appeared folk etymologies that were not connected with either word play or the 1840 Presidential election. In particular, in 1859, a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam misread an appearance of O.R. in a 1790 missive by Andrew Jackson as O.K.. This made Andrew Jackson the dominant theory of the origin of O.K. until it was disproven by Woodford Heflin in 1941 using photographic analysis.
According to Read, an English professor at the University of Alabama named W. S. Wyman attributed OK to the Choctaw word "okeh", which means "it is so", in 1885. This theory was endorsed by President Woodrow Wilson. Unlike Read's own scholarship, this etymology lacks a clear historical record. Nonetheless, this theory remains popular among some students of American Indian culture.[7]
It has been suggested that in World War II the term "zero killed" was used when a unit suffered no casualties in combat, and that this was then shortened to 0K. This proposed etymology is grossly anachronistic, since by this time the term had been widely used for a full century. The same theory has also been applied to the Civil War, but this is also anachronistic.
Another story is that the expression came from a quality control system in some company, in which some inspector with the initials O.K. provided final approval. Some versions of this story include implausible employee names such as "Omar Kulemsky" or impossibly anachronistic choices for the company such as the Ford Motor Company, where a German immigrant named Otto Kaiser or Otto Kruger or Oskar Krause would inspect each car coming off the assembly line at a plant in Michigan and chalk his initials on the front windshield if it was "OK".
There are also many proposed international etymologies of O.K., but they lack supporting written evidence just as the American folk etymologies do.
★ In Greek, O.K. is a correctly-spelled abbreviation for the expression, ''Ola Kala'' (Ὅλα Καλά, ΟΚ), which has the same meaning as the American English "okay". It is possible that Greek sailors used ''Ola Kala'' in American ports. It is also said that "O.K." was written on the ships or other places to show that the ships are ready.
★ "Waaw-kay" is an exclamation in the Wolof language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and southern Mauritania: "waaw" means yes, and "kay" is an emphatic, so "waaw-kay" is an emphatic yes. There is a record of a traveller from England who encountered such usage from a slave in Virginia in the 18th century[8]:
:::''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;...''
:Although this usage of "kay" significantly predates the initialism fad in Boston, there is no record that connects this particular Wolof word to the use O.K. among non-slave English speakers. However, some other English words such as jive (jev) and banana have uncontested Wolof or other Bantu language-group origins.
★ The word of assent in Occitan is ''òc'' (from Latin ''hoc''), as opposed to ''oïl'' (< Lat. ''"hoc ille''), the ancestor of the modern French ''oui'', from the ''langue d'oïl'' of Northern France. However, before the word "okay" appeared in American English, the final consonant in Occitan ''òc'' tended to become silent, leading to the two possible pronunciations: . In any case, it is very unlikely that this Occitan word is the origin of the Bostonian "okay."
★ French fishermen, including those based in New Orleans, might sometimes have used the phrase "au quai", literally "to the quay", to mean that a fishing trip was successful (or went okay) and therefore there were fish to unload at the quay. This itself may have been derived from references to the Haitian seaport of Les Cayes (previously known as 'Aux Cayes').
★ The term OK is also used by typesetters and people working in publishing. Supposedly, a manuscript that did not need any changes or corrections would be marked O.K. for ''Ohne Korrektur'' (German for 'without correction'). Other stories are that it comes from the British English word ''hoacky'' (the last load of the harvest), the Finnish word ''oikein'' ('that's right' or 'correct'), or the Scottish expression ''och aye'' (''oh yes'').
★ Yet another unsupported speculation is that the word derives from Spanish. English speakers may have directly translated the phrase 'or what' into Spanish, and the Spanish speakers have regarded it as an English dialectal feature. Or Spanish speakers may have used the phrase '¿o qué?' (or what?) in the end of many English sentences, letting English speakers interpret it as a dialectal 'right' and thus replied with an affirmative 'o qué'.
★ In Sesotho, the national language of Lesotho, the phrase "ho lokile," (pronounced "ho low-key-lay") means literally "that/this/it is good." This is an unlikely source for the English okay, but English-speaking students of Sesotho purportedly experience an "eerie moment" when introduced to this very common phrase. (Similarly, the phrase "e-a ntatae" means "yes, sir" — literally, "yes, father." It is pronounced very much like "A-on Daddy"!)
★ Some people say that OK derives from a signoff from a German general during the Independance War, whereas OK would be short for "OberKommando"
In English ''okay'' may be used as nearly any part of speech. When used as a noun, the word signifies approval or consent, as in, "Make sure you get the teacher's okay on that topic." The verb has a similar function, such as, "Get the teacher to okay that topic." As an adjective or adverb it implies adequate but unremarkable quality: "That sandwich was okay." "We ran okay today." ''Okay'' as an interjection takes the place of "all right" or "that's enough:" "Okay, I get the point." As part of an interrogative it requests confirmation: "We need to leave by five, okay?"
Whether this word is printed as OK, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Common style guides: Chicago, New York Times, etc., provide no consensus nor do dictionaries. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends the spellings "OK, OKd OKing, OKs" and states "do not use [the spelling] okay."
★ kay or 'kay, notably used in Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny" as a filler word by the maniacal Captain Queeg.
★ k or kk — commonly used in instant messaging, or in S.M.S. messages
★ 'mkay, m'kay or mkay — in use long before, but popularised by, TV show ''South Park''.
★ Okey dokey, Okey Doke or Okie Dokie
★ Okily dokily — Popularised as the catch phrase of ''The Simpsons'' character Ned Flanders.
★ A-ok
★ Okey, Okee or Okie
★ "OK" has also been adopted in Korean colloquial speech (오케이), especially among the younger crowd. For simplicity's sake, it is often spelled "ㅇㅋ" in text messages.
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
:Okay (also OK) / adj, adv (informal) all right; satisfactory or satisfactorily
:Eg. I hope the children are okay. (I hope the children are all right.)
:I think I did OK in the exam. (I think I did well, but not too well, on the exam.)
:He is OK. ( He is good )
Depending on context and inflection, ''Okay'' can also imply mediocrity. For example: "The concert was just ''okay''."
''Okay'' is sometimes used merely to acknowledge a question without giving an affirmation. For example: "You're going to give the money back that you stole, right?" "Okay."
Saying Okay in a sarcastic tone or questioning tone can indicate that the person one is talking to is considered crazy and/or exacerbatingly stubborn in their view.
''Okay!'' can also be used as an exclamation in place of words like "enough!" or "stop!"
Okay is a very widespread term. English speakers everywhere use and understand it.
In Europe the word is widespread and well-recognized.
In Brazil and Mexico the word is pronounced just as it is in English, and is used very frequently. In Portugal, it is used with its original pronunciation and sounds something like "ókâi".
It is used in Japan and Korea in a somewhat restricted sense, fairly equivalent to "all right". In China the term "好了" (hao le), whose meaning closely resembles that of 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 [9]. The "了" indicates a change of state, ie. "OK了" indicates the achievement of consensus. In Taiwan, it is frequently used in various sentences, popular among but not limited to younger generations. This includes the forementioned "OK了" (OK le), "OK嗎" (OK ma), meaning "Is it OK?" or "OK啦" (OK la), a strong, persuading affirmative. In the Philippines "OK lang" is a common expression, literally meaning "just OK" or "just fine".
In Malay, it is frequenty used with the emphatic suffix "lah": OK-lah.
★ OK gesture
1. Read, Allen W. (1963). The first stage in the history of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''38'' (1), 5-27.
2. Read, Allen W. (1963). The second stage in the history of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''38'' (2), 83-102.
3. Read, Allen W. (1963). Could Andrew Jackson spell?. ''American Speech'', ''38'' (3), 188-195.
4. Read, Allen W. (1964). The folklore of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''39'' (1), 5-25.
5. Read, Allen W. (1964). Later stages in the history of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''39'' (2), 83-101.
6. Read, Allen W. (1964). Successive revisions in the explanation of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''39'' (4), 243-267.
7. The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
8. J. F. D. Smyth, ''A Tour in the United States of America (London, 1784), 1:118-21
9. 3 mins and 37 secs http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RSHziqJWYcM
★ 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 Literaure'', 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.
★ The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
★ Most Frequently-spoken Word on the Planet: OK or O.K. or Okay
★ A Straight Dope column on the origin
★ Origin of the "OK Button"
★ Origin of the Word OK
★ NPR: The Origin of OK (audio)
'Okay' is a term of approval, assent, or acknowledgment, often written as 'OK' or 'O.K.'. This is also known as AOK. When used to describe the quality of a thing, it denotes acceptability. However, its usage can also be strongly approving; as with most slang, its usage is determined by context.
The historical record shows that O.K. appeared as an abbreviation for "oll korrect" (a conscious misspelling of "all correct") in Boston newspapers in 1839, and was reinterpreted as "Old Kinderhook" in the 1840 United States presidential election. Because it is a recent word born of word play, and because it is so widely used, O.K. has also invited many folk etymologies. These competing theories are not supported by the historical written record, except in that folk and joke etymologies influenced the true history of the word. Since the 19th century, the word has spread around the world, the ''okay'' spelling of it first appearing in British writing in the 1860s. Spelled out in full in the 20th century, 'okay' has come to be in everyday use among English speakers, and borrowed by non-English speakers.
Etymology: "Oll Korrect" and "Old Kinderhook"
Allen Walker Read conclusively documented the early history of the abbreviation ''O.K.'', now also spelled ''okay'', in a series of six articles in the journal ''American Speech'' in 1963 and 1964.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later it spread to the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding O.K. and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself.
The first printed examples of O.K. can be found in the Boston newspapers of 1839 as part of a broader fad of forming and employing acronyms and initialisms, many of them barbarous. Other examples at the time included G.T.T. for "gone to Texas" and K.Y. for "know yuse". The general fad may have existed in spoken or informal written American English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. O.K. was intended as a misspelling of "all correct"; in the first few years it was often published with this gloss. (Note that gloss indicates the spread of a new word.) The gloss was sometimes varied with degraded spelling 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. In this first phase, O.K. was spread with the acronym fad from Boston to other American cities.
The first recorded appearance in the first phase was in the ''Boston Morning Post'' on March 23, 1839, in the following passage (presumably written by editor Charles Gordon Greene).
: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.
In a second phase, O.K. was boosted by the 1840 presidential election, and thus marked to outlast the acronym fad from which it came. Democratic supporters of candidate Martin Van Buren equated "Oll Korrect" with "Old Kinderhook", which was a nickname for Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, NY. In response, Whig opponents attributed O.K., in the sense of "Oll Korrect", to Andrew Jackson's bad spelling. Thus, the election popularized both O.K. and a folk etymology that the acronym came from Andrew Jackson.
O.K. spread across the United States over the next two decades, and probably as far as Jamaica by 1848. The Civil War cemented its use, as much by confirming to American speakers that it was widely understood as by spreading it yet further. In the second half of the 19th century it spread to England and many other countries. In England it was first viewed as an improper Americanism, but it became widely accepted between the first and second World Wars.
Folk etymologies
The wordplay origin of O.K. invited folk etymology and joke etymology from the beginning. Eventually there appeared folk etymologies that were not connected with either word play or the 1840 Presidential election. In particular, in 1859, a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam misread an appearance of O.R. in a 1790 missive by Andrew Jackson as O.K.. This made Andrew Jackson the dominant theory of the origin of O.K. until it was disproven by Woodford Heflin in 1941 using photographic analysis.
According to Read, an English professor at the University of Alabama named W. S. Wyman attributed OK to the Choctaw word "okeh", which means "it is so", in 1885. This theory was endorsed by President Woodrow Wilson. Unlike Read's own scholarship, this etymology lacks a clear historical record. Nonetheless, this theory remains popular among some students of American Indian culture.[7]
It has been suggested that in World War II the term "zero killed" was used when a unit suffered no casualties in combat, and that this was then shortened to 0K. This proposed etymology is grossly anachronistic, since by this time the term had been widely used for a full century. The same theory has also been applied to the Civil War, but this is also anachronistic.
Another story is that the expression came from a quality control system in some company, in which some inspector with the initials O.K. provided final approval. Some versions of this story include implausible employee names such as "Omar Kulemsky" or impossibly anachronistic choices for the company such as the Ford Motor Company, where a German immigrant named Otto Kaiser or Otto Kruger or Oskar Krause would inspect each car coming off the assembly line at a plant in Michigan and chalk his initials on the front windshield if it was "OK".
International folk etymologies
There are also many proposed international etymologies of O.K., but they lack supporting written evidence just as the American folk etymologies do.
★ In Greek, O.K. is a correctly-spelled abbreviation for the expression, ''Ola Kala'' (Ὅλα Καλά, ΟΚ), which has the same meaning as the American English "okay". It is possible that Greek sailors used ''Ola Kala'' in American ports. It is also said that "O.K." was written on the ships or other places to show that the ships are ready.
★ "Waaw-kay" is an exclamation in the Wolof language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and southern Mauritania: "waaw" means yes, and "kay" is an emphatic, so "waaw-kay" is an emphatic yes. There is a record of a traveller from England who encountered such usage from a slave in Virginia in the 18th century[8]:
:::''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;...''
:Although this usage of "kay" significantly predates the initialism fad in Boston, there is no record that connects this particular Wolof word to the use O.K. among non-slave English speakers. However, some other English words such as jive (jev) and banana have uncontested Wolof or other Bantu language-group origins.
★ The word of assent in Occitan is ''òc'' (from Latin ''hoc''), as opposed to ''oïl'' (< Lat. ''"hoc ille''), the ancestor of the modern French ''oui'', from the ''langue d'oïl'' of Northern France. However, before the word "okay" appeared in American English, the final consonant in Occitan ''òc'' tended to become silent, leading to the two possible pronunciations: . In any case, it is very unlikely that this Occitan word is the origin of the Bostonian "okay."
★ French fishermen, including those based in New Orleans, might sometimes have used the phrase "au quai", literally "to the quay", to mean that a fishing trip was successful (or went okay) and therefore there were fish to unload at the quay. This itself may have been derived from references to the Haitian seaport of Les Cayes (previously known as 'Aux Cayes').
★ The term OK is also used by typesetters and people working in publishing. Supposedly, a manuscript that did not need any changes or corrections would be marked O.K. for ''Ohne Korrektur'' (German for 'without correction'). Other stories are that it comes from the British English word ''hoacky'' (the last load of the harvest), the Finnish word ''oikein'' ('that's right' or 'correct'), or the Scottish expression ''och aye'' (''oh yes'').
★ Yet another unsupported speculation is that the word derives from Spanish. English speakers may have directly translated the phrase 'or what' into Spanish, and the Spanish speakers have regarded it as an English dialectal feature. Or Spanish speakers may have used the phrase '¿o qué?' (or what?) in the end of many English sentences, letting English speakers interpret it as a dialectal 'right' and thus replied with an affirmative 'o qué'.
★ In Sesotho, the national language of Lesotho, the phrase "ho lokile," (pronounced "ho low-key-lay") means literally "that/this/it is good." This is an unlikely source for the English okay, but English-speaking students of Sesotho purportedly experience an "eerie moment" when introduced to this very common phrase. (Similarly, the phrase "e-a ntatae" means "yes, sir" — literally, "yes, father." It is pronounced very much like "A-on Daddy"!)
★ Some people say that OK derives from a signoff from a German general during the Independance War, whereas OK would be short for "OberKommando"
Grammatical functions
In English ''okay'' may be used as nearly any part of speech. When used as a noun, the word signifies approval or consent, as in, "Make sure you get the teacher's okay on that topic." The verb has a similar function, such as, "Get the teacher to okay that topic." As an adjective or adverb it implies adequate but unremarkable quality: "That sandwich was okay." "We ran okay today." ''Okay'' as an interjection takes the place of "all right" or "that's enough:" "Okay, I get the point." As part of an interrogative it requests confirmation: "We need to leave by five, okay?"
Spelling style
Whether this word is printed as OK, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Common style guides: Chicago, New York Times, etc., provide no consensus nor do dictionaries. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends the spellings "OK, OKd OKing, OKs" and states "do not use [the spelling] okay."
Variations
★ kay or 'kay, notably used in Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny" as a filler word by the maniacal Captain Queeg.
★ k or kk — commonly used in instant messaging, or in S.M.S. messages
★ 'mkay, m'kay or mkay — in use long before, but popularised by, TV show ''South Park''.
★ Okey dokey, Okey Doke or Okie Dokie
★ Okily dokily — Popularised as the catch phrase of ''The Simpsons'' character Ned Flanders.
★ A-ok
★ Okey, Okee or Okie
★ "OK" has also been adopted in Korean colloquial speech (오케이), especially among the younger crowd. For simplicity's sake, it is often spelled "ㅇㅋ" in text messages.
Usage
From the Oxford English Dictionary:
:Okay (also OK) / adj, adv (informal) all right; satisfactory or satisfactorily
:Eg. I hope the children are okay. (I hope the children are all right.)
:I think I did OK in the exam. (I think I did well, but not too well, on the exam.)
:He is OK. ( He is good )
Depending on context and inflection, ''Okay'' can also imply mediocrity. For example: "The concert was just ''okay''."
''Okay'' is sometimes used merely to acknowledge a question without giving an affirmation. For example: "You're going to give the money back that you stole, right?" "Okay."
Saying Okay in a sarcastic tone or questioning tone can indicate that the person one is talking to is considered crazy and/or exacerbatingly stubborn in their view.
''Okay!'' can also be used as an exclamation in place of words like "enough!" or "stop!"
International Usage
Okay is a very widespread term. English speakers everywhere use and understand it.
In Europe the word is widespread and well-recognized.
In Brazil and Mexico the word is pronounced just as it is in English, and is used very frequently. In Portugal, it is used with its original pronunciation and sounds something like "ókâi".
It is used in Japan and Korea in a somewhat restricted sense, fairly equivalent to "all right". In China the term "好了" (hao le), whose meaning closely resembles that of 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 [9]. The "了" indicates a change of state, ie. "OK了" indicates the achievement of consensus. In Taiwan, it is frequently used in various sentences, popular among but not limited to younger generations. This includes the forementioned "OK了" (OK le), "OK嗎" (OK ma), meaning "Is it OK?" or "OK啦" (OK la), a strong, persuading affirmative. In the Philippines "OK lang" is a common expression, literally meaning "just OK" or "just fine".
In Malay, it is frequenty used with the emphatic suffix "lah": OK-lah.
See also
★ OK gesture
References
1. Read, Allen W. (1963). The first stage in the history of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''38'' (1), 5-27.
2. Read, Allen W. (1963). The second stage in the history of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''38'' (2), 83-102.
3. Read, Allen W. (1963). Could Andrew Jackson spell?. ''American Speech'', ''38'' (3), 188-195.
4. Read, Allen W. (1964). The folklore of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''39'' (1), 5-25.
5. Read, Allen W. (1964). Later stages in the history of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''39'' (2), 83-101.
6. Read, Allen W. (1964). Successive revisions in the explanation of "O.K.". ''American Speech'', ''39'' (4), 243-267.
7. The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
8. J. F. D. Smyth, ''A Tour in the United States of America (London, 1784), 1:118-21
9. 3 mins and 37 secs http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RSHziqJWYcM
★ 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 Literaure'', 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.
External links
★ The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
★ Most Frequently-spoken Word on the Planet: OK or O.K. or Okay
★ A Straight Dope column on the origin
★ Origin of the "OK Button"
★ Origin of the Word OK
★ NPR: The Origin of OK (audio)
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