Of all the words in the English language, the word “OK” is pretty new. It’s only been used for about 185 years.
Although it’s become the most spoken word on the planet, it’s kind of a strange word, spelled out differently. Sometimes it’s spelled out “okay,” and sometimes just two letters are used, “OK.” Other times, periods separate the two letters: “O.K.”
Words change over time, usually in response to social changes or scientific discoveries. For example, the word “silly” used to mean “happy” and now means “foolish.”
Sometimes new words develop, like “stan,” which means a person who’s obsessed with a celebrity, and “exomoon,” a moon outside our solar system.
“OK,” whose earliest usage is 1839, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, generally means things are good or alright. So why did people start to say it?
Some linguists point to how, in the early 19th century, humorous abbreviations were in vogue. Young people would write things like “KG,” which stood for “know go,” an intentional misspelling of “no go,” when they meant something was impossible. It was a way to play with language.
Likewise, experts think “OK” likely emerged as an abbreviation of “oll korrect”—which was a jokey way of saying “all correct.” Others say that it derives from “Old Kinderhook,” a nickname for former U.S. President Martin Van Buren, or that it comes from Choctaw, a Native American language.
The nice thing about “OK” is that it’s so versatile. It can be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, a conjunction or an interjection. It’s also competed, over time, with “alright” and “all right”—words and phrases that have identical meanings.
Now you know, OK?