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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Origin of Words
Message-ID: <295@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Sep-84 19:19:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.295
Posted: Sun Sep 30 19:19:52 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Oct-84 03:55:34 EDT
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> [From] Ray Lubinsky, University of Virginia
>
> I'm suprised that nobody's just gone to the dictionary for this.  Mine
> at home (Webster's 7th Collegiate, I think) has this to say about 'OK'...
> 
>    OK, O.K. (...) adj., adv., interj.  [orig.  U.S.  colloq.: first
>          known  use (March 23, 1839) by C.G. Greene, editor, in the
>          Boston _Morning_Post_, as if abbrev.  for  "oll  korrect",
>          facetious  misspelling of _all_correct_ (cf. _Am._Speech_,
>          Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1): popularized by use in name of  Demo-
>          cratic    _O.K._    Club    (1840),    in    allusion   to
>          _Old_Kinderhook_, native village of Martin Van Buren, whom
>          the club supported for a 2d term ]
> 
> Now.  Since that's out of the way, everybody can get back to arguing.  OK?

OK!  I would just like to add some pertinent information from
Stewart Berg Flexner, language guy, who says:

	``OK'' started out as part of a humorous fad or game of
	abbreviating phrases in an outrageous way (sometimes
	humorously misspelled to add to the fun) among a few
	Boston and New York writers, journalists and wits in the
	summer of 1838....

He later confirms Webster's dating of first written use.
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett			...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!gam

[ This does not necessarily reflect the opinions of my supervisor, my 
  employer, its stockholders, their siblings et. al. ]