What is the etyma...whatsit origin of 'ok'?

Factual Questions
1

It seems to be a unique word, one of a kind. Pronounced as if someone asked how it’s spelled.

Rather than ‘ok’ (‘sock’ without the ‘s’ sound) it’s ‘owkay’. As far as I know it’s the only word (apart from ‘I’ if ‘I’ is a word) that has that attribute.

2

Etymology is the word you’re looking for.

As for the etymology of “ok”, read the words of the great Cecil and be enlightened.

3

[QUOTE=Lobsang]
It seems to be a unique word, one of a kind. Pronounced as if someone asked how it’s spelled.

Rather than ‘ok’ (‘sock’ without the ‘s’ sound) it’s ‘owkay’. As far as I know it’s the only word (apart from ‘I’ if ‘I’ is a word) that has that attribute.
[/QUOTE]
When using software with ‘OK’ buttons, I often think of them as ‘ock’ buttons. :slight_smile:

That Cecil article on the etymology of OK is brilliant, the kind of stuff that caused me to join the SDMB, and, later, subscribe.

Am I the only one who first learned ‘OK’ as a spelt-out word ‘okay’, and only later ran into ‘OK’, and thought it was some kind of abbreviation of the longer word?

‘Ow-kay’ rather than ‘oh-kay’? How do you pronounce ‘how’? Or were you thinking of ‘flow’? I’m just wondering whether you have a very different dialect of English than me (southern Ontario).

Trivia: ‘Okay’ has made it into Esperanto as ‘okej’, pronounced the same. :slight_smile:

4

[QUOTE=Lobsang]
It seems to be a unique word, one of a kind. Pronounced as if someone asked how it’s spelled.

Rather than ‘ok’ (‘sock’ without the ‘s’ sound) it’s ‘owkay’. As far as I know it’s the only word (apart from ‘I’ if ‘I’ is a word) that has that attribute.
[/QUOTE]
As Q.E.D.'s link shows, OK is an acronym (or initialism for the pedantic) and they are pretty much always pronounced this way. eg: eg, ie, nb …

5

Dashiell Hammet’s detectives all say “Okey”. Just an interesting tidbit…

6

The Times spells it “okay”.

7

[QUOTE=Lobsang]
It seems to be a unique word, one of a kind. Pronounced as if someone asked how it’s spelled.

Rather than ‘ok’ (‘sock’ without the ‘s’ sound) it’s ‘owkay’. As far as I know it’s the only word (apart from ‘I’ if ‘I’ is a word) that has that attribute.
[/QUOTE]

It isn’t unique. There are many words, or initialisms, of this kind in English. On the QT, he KO’d the guy in the third round, etc.