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Where does the term okay come from? |
Language
Have you ever read an email that included phrases like "B.T.W." or "L.O.L.?" You know that these are shortened versions of the phrases "by the way" and "laugh out loud," but what does the most common abbreviation of them all — "O.K." — mean? Turns out, the practice of turning phrases into abbreviated slang isn't such a new idea...
Etymologists (scientists who study words and how they are created) have traced the origin of the phrase back to newspapers in Boston dating from the 1830's! Back then, it was a trend for humor writers to purposely misspell words and phrases, doing so often enough for them to eventually just use abbreviations — some of the more popular ones included "nuff said" (N.S.), "know yuse" (K.Y.), and "oll wright" (O.W.). "O.K." stands for "oll korrect," and was used to show that everything was right or in its proper place!
Etymologists (scientists who study words and how they are created) have traced the origin of the phrase back to newspapers in Boston dating from the 1830's! Back then, it was a trend for humor writers to purposely misspell words and phrases, doing so often enough for them to eventually just use abbreviations — some of the more popular ones included "nuff said" (N.S.), "know yuse" (K.Y.), and "oll wright" (O.W.). "O.K." stands for "oll korrect," and was used to show that everything was right or in its proper place!
While its newspaper origins are the most accepted due to all of the documentation, there is another common theory as to the beginnings of this popular phrase. The Choctaw, a Native American tribe based in the Southeastern United States, has a word in their language that means "it is so" — okeh. Some think that explorers and settlers in this area may have adopted this phrase, especially during and after the Battle of New Orleans in 1815!
Do you have any phrases that you like? What would their abbreviations be? Perhaps your special slang will catch on as well!