OK

Factual Questions
1

Sorry to disappoint all those who were hoping for a good old-fashioned Oklahoma thread – maybe next time.

All right…so what’s the deal with the origin of these 2 letters? Or is it actually only correctly used when spelled “okay,” in which case, I guess this is like asking how “cheese” came to mean what it does today. Oh well…I’ve now convinced myself that this is a dumb question. Any thoughts? (preferably on the former topic, not the latter)

“Give a man a match and he’ll be warm for an hour… Set him on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”

2

Webster’s, http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm*, says “abbreviation of oll korrect, facetious alteration of all correct”.

Sounds like UL to me.

Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”

3

Cecil and the last word on OK origin:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_250.html

4

Now, I want to make a declaration to start with: Cecil is never wrong! I just can’t emphasise that enough, to avoid the flames.

However … Professor Read, whom Cecil cites for the “oll korrect” - “Old Kinderhook” theses, was writing in 1963-64. Robert Claiborne, in his book “Our Marvelous Native Tongue,” © 1983, does not agree with the Read thesis.

Claiborne states:

"Easily the prize Africanism in American English, whence it has pased into a dozen tongues around the world, is our omnipresent “O.K.” For years, lexicographers grappled with this strange term, evolving etymologies that were more ingenious than scholarly. It was termed an abbreviation of the semiliterate expression “oll korrect,” slanderously ascribed to President Andrew Jackson, or of “Old Kinderhook,” the supposed nickname of another American president, Martin Van Buren (from his birthplace, a Dutch settlement on the Hudson). Eventually, more thoughtful scholars established that “O.K.” and various similar terms had been used as far back as the American Revolution – long before anyone had heard of either Jackson or Van Buren. And its source was unquestionably one of various West African expressions such as o-ke of was-ke, meaning “O.K.” "

Unfortunately, Claiborne’s book is intended for the popular audience, not the scholarly one, and he does not give any cites for this analysis.

Claiborne goes on to argue (at pp. 246-247) that there has been an element of racism in etymology - that proper white scholars would simply never consider or accept that the “superior” English language could be contaminated by “primitive” West African languages. (He also argues that linguistic interactions between African-Americans and whites is the origin of the “Southern” accent, not fantasy theories about Elizabethan English being spoken in the Adirondacks. But that’s another thread…)

So, in light of the Prime Directive, cited above, should Cecil re-investigate this issue? Again, not to say that Cecil was wrong (I want to make that absolutely, positively clear), but if the stiffs he relied on were wrong, it could have affected his analysis.

5

Forgot to put the page number for that long quotation. It’s at p. 205 of Claiborne’s book.

6

jti:

Actually, he may want the interactions to make it into the public consciousness with more regularity, but most linguists that I have read do note the importance of the African dialects on the speech of various Southern dialects. If he says “the” Southern dialect or “all” Southern dialects, then Claiborne goes too far. There are several dialects and each has a different point of origin and different later influences. I am sure that there is more work to be done on the subject, but I generally see the African influence acknowledged.

(BTW, the Adirondacks are a rather uninhabited area in New York. Appalachians, perhaps?)

Tom~

7

Tom,

you’re right - i meant appalachians.

Claiborne’s book is from 1983 - perhaps in the intervening years there is now much greater awareness of the African-American contributions? I think his criticism was aimed more at etymologists of the past.

I don’t think he was trying to say there is one single “Southern” accent - one of the themes of his book is the great variety of English, regionally, socially and so on. (In fact, the chapter in which he discusses this issue is called “Our Infinite Variety.”)

(5 hours, and no flames for critiquing Cecil?? whew!)

8

[[Robert Claiborne, in his book “Our Marvelous Native Tongue,” © 1983, does not agree with the Read thesis.

Claiborne states:

"Easily the prize Africanism in American English, whence it has pased into a dozen tongues around the world, is our omnipresent “O.K.” For years, lexicographers grappled with this strange term, evolving etymologies that were more ingenious than scholarly. It was termed an abbreviation of the semiliterate expression “oll korrect,” slanderously ascribed to President Andrew Jackson, or of “Old Kinderhook,” the supposed nickname of another American president, Martin Van Buren (from his birthplace, a Dutch settlement on the Hudson). Eventually, more thoughtful scholars established that “O.K.” and various similar terms had been used as far back as the American Revolution – long before anyone had heard of either Jackson or Van Buren. And its source was unquestionably one of various West African expressions such as o-ke of was-ke, meaning “O.K.” "

Unfortunately, Claiborne’s book is intended for the popular audience, not the scholarly one, and he does not give any cites for this analysis.]] jti
I’ll take Claiborne seriously when he produces his evidence, rather than simply declaring that the evidence for his theory exists. What are that guy’s qualifications, BTW? Read’s theory is certainly supported in a scholarly manner (as opposed to Claiborne’s).

9

on the blurb, it says that Claiborne is the major American contributer to Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Catch Phrases (2nd ed.), and has also contributed to Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. Partidge is a well-respected lexicographer in the field of slang, so I assume Claiborne has some standing as well.

10

Okay, that’s where “OK” comes from, but when did “Okay” start to become used? (Personally, I always thought “okay” came first, and “OK” was just a shortening, like the many U C on the internet nowadays.)

11

O! ye unbelievers. Look on Cecil’s works and despair. Why trouble your mind with other lesser works? You shall have your reward.

12

I think those are all nutty answers, so why not another one:

Back before the Revolutionary War, the squirrels in a town called Twin Oaks decided they would separate their winter stock of nuts into two grades, the best they would start using at the beginning of winter, and if the winter were short, that’s all they would have to use and so could throw away the lower-grade nuts they had collected. But if the winter were long, they would have to resort to the batch of lower-grade ones also. Clearly they had two oaks in which to differentially store these nuts. I wonder what they called these two oaks?

Ray (Oak B, nut so good, it’s gonna be a long winter.)

13

For someone who dislikes the genre, you write pretty good fairy tales, Ray.
Still, don’t sell the bike shop… :wink:

14

Can I recycle it?

Ray (Just to put everything in a nutshell, repeated signatures bother me also. Anyone want this one: It takes more than an 11-digit number today to be located in the biomass.)