Okay, OK, or O.K. is a colloquial English word denoting approval, assent, or acknowledgment that has been a loanword from English for many other languages. As an adjective it means 'adequate', 'acceptable' ("this is okay to send out"), 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"), agreement ("Okay, that's good"), a wish to defuse a situation or calm someone ("It's okay, it's not that bad"). As a noun and verb it means 'assent'. ("The boss okayed the purchase")
The origins of 'okay' are not known with certainty, and have been the subject of much discussion over the years.
Earliest documented examples
The earliest 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 a Negro man, which was O.K."[1]
However, the record is hand-written rather than printed, and James Parton's 1860 biography of Jackson[2] suggested that it is really a poorly written O.R., which was the abbreviation used for "Ordered Recorded". Woodford Heflin, the staff writer in charge of "O.K." entry of the Dictionary of American English did a photographic analysis in 1941[3] which also supports the O.R. interpretation of the inscription.
Allen Walker Read identified the earliest known use of okay 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.
Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print: seven were accompanied ("glossed") with variations on "all correct" such as "oll korrect" or "ole kurreck"; 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". "Kinderhook" was 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."[4] 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 America.
James Pyle, inventor of "Pyle's Pearline" purchased by Proctor & Gamble in 1914 and renamed "Ivory Snow", placed an ad in the NY Times, October 23, 1862 which refers to James Pyle's O.K. Soap. The NY 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 read the version of the origin of the 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
Various etymologies have been proposed for okay, but none has been unanimously agreed upon. Most are generally regarded to be unlikely or anachronistic.
There are four proposed etymologies which have received material academic support since the 1960s. They are:
- the Greek words "Ola Kala" meaning "everything's good"
- the acronym of the "comically misspelled" oll korrect
- the Choctaw word okeh
- the Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke
The "comically misspelled" one has been extensively argued for by Read; the last 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)
Oll korrect
This is historically the most commonly cited etymology, as it is Read's own conclusion and became widely known following his landmark 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.[5][6][7][8][9][10] 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 America 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" and N.S.M.J. for "'nough said 'moung gentlemen."[11]
- "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."[12]
The general fad may have existed in spoken or informal written American 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.
Another problem with this etymology is that the "comical misspellings" were phonetic. "Oll Korrect" (sometimes "orl korrect") clearly suggests that what is being comically misspelled was heard from someone speaking with a non-standard accent, either deliberately or habitually. The semantic similarity between "oll korrect" and the German (Pennsylvanian Dutch) "alles in Ordnung" ("everything is in order/all is correct") should be noted. However, at that time this accent was not widespread in America outside the north-east, which would have tended to reduce the rate of wider adoption of the now-arbitrary slang.
Choctaw: okeh
The underlying theme here is English-speaking Americans taking up a locally-heard Native American word.
According to Read, an English professor at the University of Alabama named W. S. Wyman in 1885 attributed okay to the Choctaw word "okeh", which means "it is so". 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.[13] In 1918, Otto K. E. Heinemann began recording and selling music records through his OkeH Records, which was based on the initials of his name, but prominently featured a Native American, presumably Choctaw, in its logo, which is almost assuredly a reference to this etymological theory.
- 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"…
- — Peter, Paul, & Mary, All Mixed Up (1964). Written by Pete Seeger.
In this etymology, OK is a backronym chosen for its phonetic consonance.
A serious problem with this etymology is the lack of a strong reason why a word from a language of a group geographically then legally restricted to America's south coast then later the mid-west would be colloquially familiar to English-speaking residents of America's north-east extremity.
Another serious problem with this etymology is the lack of a written record clearly linking the English usage with its prior usage.
Oklahoma: OK
The abbreviation for the state of Oklahoma turned into a popular catch phrase in 1866 when the state of Oklahoma was inducted into the United States. Sir Charles Gibson used it in running for governor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Wolof: waw-kay
Documented instances exist well before 1839 of African slaves in the Americas 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;..." [14]
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."[15]
In particular, Wolof is a West African language which has had an unusually strong influence upon (once) colloquial English, with well documented examples such as banana, jive, dig (it), yam, and sock (someone), along with the contested hip or hip cat.[16] Importantly, a key study claims Wolof to be an important lingua franca among American slaves.[17]
"Waw" means "yes" and the suffix "-kay" or "-kai" adds emphasis. A simplistic word-for-word translation of Wolof's "wawkay" is "yes [emphatically]" or "yes, indeed"; but better usage translations would be "I agree", "I'll comply", "that's good", "that's right", or "all correct". The consonance of this last translation with the first documented usage of okay could be significant, or could be coincidence. However, okay's colloquial rather than formal usage strongly coincides with other Wolof words which have migrated documentedly into the American version of the English language, and its earliest documented usage is explicitly colloquial, not to say jocular. Significantly, the emergence of okay in white Americans' vocabulary dates from a period when many refugees from Southern slavery were arriving in the North of America, where the word was first documented.
A strength of this etymology is its consonance with Read's own documented evidence of the craze for "comical misspellings". These typically took the form of phonetic transcriptions of locally heard accents. For example, the German-accented (Pennsylvanian Dutch-accented) "Vell, vot ov it?" Many refugees from Southern slavery were arriving in the North of America at the time of okay's first written appearance and it is likely that Boston residents would have come in contact with Africans using Wolof terms and could well have had wawkay translated for them as "all correct".
The underlying theme here is English-speaking Americans taking up a locally-heard African word.
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.[18]
| Variation |
Where used/Origins |
Ref |
| okeh |
An alternative English spelling, no longer common |
[19] |
| 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 S.M.S. messages. Commonly attributed to have originated from actor/writer Sean Neil Connell. |
[20][21] |
| 'mkay, m'kay, or mkay |
in use long before, but popularized by Mr. Van Driessen in Beavis & 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 Raskles" (Oki doki) and later popularized further as the catch phrase of The Simpsons character Ned Flanders (Oka-lee doka-lee). The phrase can be extended further, e.g. "Okie dokie (ala) pokie / smokie / artichokie," etc.. |
[citation needed] |
| okej |
used in Poland, although 'ok' is more common in written language; sometimes 'oki' is used in speech |
[22] |
| ôkê |
used in Vietnam, "okey" is also used, although 'ok' is more common |
[citation needed] |
| Okei |
sometimes used in Norwegian, Finnish and Latvian |
[citation needed] |
| Okej |
used in Swedish and sometimes Latvian. "ok" is also used, but is less common. |
[citation needed] |
| Oké |
used in Hungarian ok, okés, okézsoké is also commonly used |
[citation needed] |
| Okee or Oké |
used in Dutch. "ok" and "okay" are also used, but are less common in the formal written language. |
[citation needed] |
| Ouwkeeg |
phonetic translation in Dutch, used in informal written language in the Flemish region of Belgium |
| Okey |
Esp. in Latin American (Spanish) and Turkish. |
[citation needed] |
| Ookoo |
(Used in Finland. It is pronounced the same way as "OK", but it's spelled like the pronunciation of the letters. |
[citation needed] |
| Oukej |
used in Czech. Oukej is pronounced as English OK. Czech also recognises "OK", but the pronunciation of OK is [o:ka:]. Neither version is recognized in the official language. |
| Oquei |
phonetic translation to Latin American Spanish. |
[citation needed] |
- Okay has also been adopted in Korean colloquial speech (오케이), especially among the younger generations. For simplicity's sake, it is often spelled "ㅇㅋ" in text messages.
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.
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 back the money 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. "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."
International usage
Okay has become an essentially global term, used today in most languages and most cultures around the world.
It is not uncommon amongst English speakers and is used almost everywhere and everyday.
In Europe the word is widespread and well-recognized.
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".
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.[23]. 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 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.
In Malay, it is frequently used with the emphatic suffix "lah": OK-lah.
In Vietnamese, it is spelled "Ô kê"
Computers
A typical modal dialog box with prominent "OK" button
"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[24]. 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".[25]
PLATO normally responded to user input with ok or no.
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. This is also used in the OLPC XO-1 laptop's OpenFirmware BIOS.
Many PCs from the 1990s performed a memory check during start-up. A counter showed the verified memory during the operation, sometimes suffixed with "OK".
During the boot sequence of several Linux distributions, after attempting to start each service the result is shown as [ OK ] or [FAIL] as appropriate.
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 programming language interpreters such as BASIC and Forth print "ok" when ready to accept input from the keyboard.
See also
References
Bibliography
- 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.
Notes
- ^ George W. Stimpson. (1934) "Nuggets Of Knowledge"
- ^ James Parton. (1859-1860) "Life of Andrew Jackson"
- ^ Heflin, Woodford A. (1941). 'O.K.,' but what do we know about it?. American Speech, 16 (2), 87-95.
- ^ The Economist, 2002.10.24, "Allen Read, obituary"
- ^ Read, Allen W. (1963) The first stage in the history of "O.K.". American Speech, 38 (1), 5-27.
- ^ Read, Allen W. (1963). The second stage in the history of "O.K.". American Speech, 38 (2), 83-102.
- ^ Read, Allen W. (1963). Could Andrew Jackson spell?. American Speech, 38 (3), 188-195.
- ^ Read, Allen W. (1964). The folklore of "O.K.". American Speech, 39 (1), 5-25.
- ^ Read, Allen W. (1964). Later stages in the history of "O.K.". American Speech, 39 (2), 83-101.
- ^ Read, Allen W. (1964). Successive revisions in the explanation of "O.K.". American Speech, 39 (4), 243-267.
- ^ Dr Jim Fay. (2007) The Choctaw Expression "Okeh" and the Americanism "Okay"
- ^ Cecil Adams, What does "OK" stand for?
- ^ Dr Jim Fay. (2007) The Choctaw Expression "Okeh" and the Americanism "Okay"
- ^ J. F. D. Smyth. (1784) A Tour in the United States of America (London, 1784), 1:118-21
- ^ David Dalby (Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, U of London). (1971) "The Etymology of O.K.", The Times, 14 January 1971
- ^ Joseph E. Holloway, The Impact of African Languages on American English—online repetition of several of Dalby's observations and conclusions
- ^ David Dalby (Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, U of London). (1969) The Times 1969.07.19. Also: "independent evidence of the importance of Wolof as a lingua franca among American slaves"
- ^ Grammarphobia: I'm OK, you're okay
- ^ Okeh as variant spelling of "okay"
- ^ Moraitis, Nick. Cyberscene. Penguin Books Australia, Ltd.
- ^ Connell, Sean. night flower.lulu publishing
- ^ http://sjp.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=2569620 (polish language)
- ^ 3 mins and 37 secs http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RSHziqJWYcM
- ^ Apple user interface designers pick "OK"
- ^ Microsoft Windows Vista user interface guidelines for dialog box buttons
External links
