As humans, or maybe just as Americans, we say a lot of things without even realizing it — a lot of "like," a lot of "um," a lot of "OK," you name it. Even on the chance occurrence that we do put thought into our specific choice of filler, we usually leave some part of its meaning or implications entirely out of the picture.
Take "OK," for example.
If you've ever gone to camp or on a school trip — or to any activity that involves a lot of icebreakers and a strange regression into a preschool dynamic — you've probably played (read: suffered through) the train game. It's a moronic game in which players aim to figure out what makes an imaginary train go by, guessing over and over again whether their trains are running from one arbitrary point to another. Players spend days, sometimes weeks, trying to guess the complicated fuel that makes their trains so unreliable, while the simple answer is that it all depends on whether they say the word "OK" before stating their train's itinerary. Train game ruined. You're welcome.
It's a lot simpler than many other riddles and word games out there, but it works so well because we say the word "OK" so often without even thinking about its utterance, meaning or use. Really, we know very little about it. We use it to prove we're listening or give the go-ahead, but is it a word or an acronym? What does it stand for? For the most part, we just take it for granted as some sort of affirmation or expression of consent.
Basically, it stands in for just that: "oll korrect." How we got from "oll korrect" to the accepted word, "OK," is a much more roundabout story, and, according to the famous etymologist Allen Walker Read, it actually begins right around here in Boston.
The mid-1800s brought about a fad in the Boston and New York areas of humorously misspelling words and common phrases, kind of like the AOL-lingo trend of the 1990s. "No go" became "know go," "no use" became "know yuse," all correct became "oll korrect." Then they took it one step further and turned them into acronyms: KG, KY, OK, etc.
That's right, 19th century townies abreved too.
But for the most part, this was just a North Eastern phenomenon, while "OK" made its way far past just New England. And curiously, "OK" outlasted all of its contemporary colloquialisms.
Every sociologist of our day will tell you that it takes more than genius for a good idea — for any idea — to catch on. It takes someone with a specific sway over other people: a trendsetter, someone really cool. For leather jackets, it was the T-birds. For the skinny look, it was Twiggy. For "OK," it was Martin Van Buren, and damn, that guy was cool.
When Van Buren was running for re-election in 1840, his nickname, Old Kinderhook (from his hometown, Kinderhook, NY), gave name to a group of supporters, the "O.K. Club." The initials became a moniker for the politician and even proved to be practical in signing documents quickly with an "OK," most likely an allusion to "oll korrect."
The two stories work in conjunction. After Bostonians and New Yorkers started up a silly local fad, Old Kinderhook came along, revived the word and spread it.
Of course there are nay-sayers who argue that the word was derived from Choctaw or African Wolof. Personally, I like to think about the chaps a century and a half ago LOLing and B-ing RB. But to those who don't believe such a juvenile trend could be adapted into formal, present-day English, dats kewl wif mee.
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Romy Oltuski is a junior majoring in English. She can be reached at Romy.Oltuski@tufts.edu.
