Where does the word OK come from?
Quick Answer
It began as a joke in a Boston newspaper in 1839, short for 'oll korrect', a deliberate misspelling of 'all correct'. A year later Martin Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, made it famous.
The Full Story
In the late 1830s, American newspapers had a craze for comic abbreviations built on misspellings, such as O.W. for 'oll wright' and K.Y. for 'know yuse'. On 23 March 1839, the Boston Morning Post printed 'o.k.' as a jokey abbreviation of 'oll korrect'. Most of these fads vanished, but OK got lucky. In the 1840 presidential election, supporters of Martin Van Buren, who was born in Kinderhook, New York, and nicknamed Old Kinderhook, formed OK Clubs and used OK as a slogan. The election spread the letters across the country, and OK soon came to mean 'all right'. The origin was pinned down by the linguist Allen Walker Read, who traced the Boston Morning Post citation in the 1960s and put to rest older theories that OK came from Choctaw, Scottish or other sources.
Key Facts
YouTube Angle
Suggested video title for this topic:
"The most used word on Earth started as a spelling joke"
Was this answer helpful?
Tap a reaction — it helps us pick what to cover next.