Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Ummm.....OK

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

If you ever want to travel around the world, even if you don’t know another language, no matter where you go there is already one word you know. It is the most ubiquitous word in the world, can be found in almost every language, and it has multiple meanings. The good news is that you know the word already, so it requires no extra effort. Learn more about the history of the word OK, the most common word in the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you ever want to travel around the world, even if you don't know another language, no matter where you go, there's already one word that you know. It's the most ubiquitous word in the world and can be found in almost every language and has multiple meetings. And the good news is because you already know the word, it requires no extra effort. Learn more about the history of the word, okay, the most common word in the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. In well over 800 episodes of this podcast, this is the first time I've dedicated an entire episode to a single word. If indeed you can even call it a word, which is someone in doubt. The reason why such a simple word would be the subject of its own episode is because of how common the word is around the world. And I can say from personal experience, having traveled to well over 100 countries, you can get by using the word okay pretty much everywhere. A word that is adopted into another language is known as a loan word, and okay has become as close to a global

loan word as possible. One of the unique things about okay is how many multiple meanings it has depending on how it's used. Okay can be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and an interjection. For example, as a noun, it could be used in the following way. We got the okay to visit the restaurant. As a verb, you could say the following. We need to okay the reservation at the restaurant. As an adjective, you would say, we went to an okay restaurant. As an adverb, you would say, the restaurant is okay. Finally, you can use it as an interjection, such as, okay, let's go to the restaurant. In addition to being used in almost every part of speech, there really isn't a consensus on how to spell okay. It spelled letter O letter K with two capital letters and okay with two lowercase letters,

or okay capitalized with periods after each letter, or okay with two lowercase letters with periods after each one. And then finally, it can be spelled O-K-A-Y. On top of that, there have been many slang uses of the word over time, which is odd because OK itself is a slang term. This includes OK, Oaky, and O-D-D-O-K. Modern Internet abbreviations will often just use the letter K as an abbreviation for OK. OK can mean different things. It can apply mediocrity if something is just okay, or it can imply affirmation, agreement, or acquiescence. Despite this interesting grammar and spelling lesson, the real reason why I'm bothering to do an episode on the word OK has to do with its origins, or rather its many origin stories, none of which can be truly verified. Here is what we do know. Despite being one of the most common words in the English language and one of the most universal words in the world, OK is actually a relatively new word.

As far as we can tell, its origins date back to the 19th century United States or a little bit earlier. The first use in print of OK dates back to 1839 and the Boston Morning Post newspaper. It was used in an article that was a satirical piece on the fad of purposeful misspellings of words alongside another fad of abbreviating phrases. People may have abbreviated phrases like no-go, spelled with a K, such as K-G. When added to purposeful misspellings, you get something like OW for All Right, with All being spelled OLL. As was documented as was documented. in the original article, the abbreviation OK stood for all correct, with all being spelled with an O and correct with a K. However, just because this might have been a fad in 1839 Boston, doesn't mean

that it wasn't used before that. In fact, if it was used beforehand, that just might be the reason why someone bothered to make a joke out of it. There are several researchers who claim to have found uses in documents before 1839. The Diary of William Richardson in 1815 noted, quote, arrived okay when he made a trip from Boston and New Orleans. Likewise, there was a diary entry from a plantation owner in Jamaica that indicated that everything was okay. There are many theories as to where the term might have come from. One of the common explanations is that it came from the Choctaw Indian language. The theory goes that sometime in the early 19th century, white traders with the Choctaw learn some of their language, or possibly some of the Choctaw language

rubbed off on American soldiers when they fought alongside them during the War of 18th. In Chonkta, the term okay means it is. President Woodrow Wilson would write the Chalkta okay on his documents if he approved them. Another theory is that the term may have had a West African origin, with slaves having brought it to America. In particular, it may have come from the Wolof language, which is spoken in modern day Senegal and Gambia. Their term, Wauke, means an emphatic yes. Another possible West African origin may be the Mendinka, which has the phrase, okay, which means that is it, or certainly. And there's another West African language, Jabo, which is today spoken in Liberia, where Oki is a similar way of saying yes. There is yet another theory that the origins may have come from Germany. Okay were initials which stood for Ona Corrector, which is German for without correction. The initials would have been used in publishing to indicate that a publication did not need any edits. Another German theory holds that it came from goods marked OK shipped from the German industrialist Otto Kaiser. This was one of the

primary theories which has floated around Germany. And yet another theory is that the initials meant Obercomando. Letters from Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben during the American Revolutionary War would have used the initials to indicate that they came from his office. Another theory has it coming from Greek. The term olakala in Greek means all good. It was abbreviated to okay by Greek immigrants in the 19th century when they sent telegraphs home to save money by sending fewer characters. There are theories that OK may have had French origins as well. The French phrase UKK means at the dock, which could have been used in either New Orleans or French ships during the revolution. There is another theory that it could have come from Scottish. The term

ach-I means oh yes. There's even a theory that may have come from Latin with the term ominous correcta, which means everything correct. Teachers would have put it on Latin paper, if there were no mistakes. Some of these theories may have some kernel of truth, and some of them might have been invented as post facto origins for the word. It also might be the case that multiple origins all converge to get people saying, okay.

What really took the term to national prominence was the election of 1840. The supporters of the incumbent president, Martin Van Buren, began to use okay as an abbreviation for his nickname, Old Kinderhook. The term during the election had a double meaning. It implied that Oll Kinderhook was all correct. He lost the election, so clearly the voters didn't think so.

In 1864, OK was included in the slang dictionary of vulgar words. Precisely because it was slang, it never appeared that often in print, which is one of the big reasons why tracking down the origin of the word is so difficult. It was also used by telegraph operators to indicate that a message had been received. OK evolved over the 20th century. In 1943, Rogers and Hammerstein wrote the musical Oklahoma. In it, one of the lines in the title song is, You're doing fine, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, OK.

Again, this has the double meaning of being the abbreviation of the state, and also implying that things are good. During the very first Mercury Space Launch in 1961, the term AOK was popularized by Lieutenant Colonel John Shorty Powers. He was the head of public affairs for NASA and also the voice of mission control. A-OK implied that something was better than just okay, and the term dates back to at least a decade beforehand. Author Tom Wolfe claimed that A-O-K was used because the A could be heard better through static than O could. There's also a hand symbol which means okay.

As I'm sure you know, you put your thumb and index finger together to make an O, and then splay your other three fingers to sort of form a K. This hand symbol has been around throughout history. It's been found on ancient Greek vases, where it indicates a symbol of love, as the index finger and thumb are supposed to be kissing. There are many images of the Buddha sitting with one hand in an okay symbol, which was used as a sign of perfection and peace. The hand signal began to be associated with the word okay in the 19th century,

but it's not exactly sure when. There are many different types of sign languages which use the okay symbol for many different things depending on how it's used. Most of the meanings, however, have nothing to do with the word okay. In scuba diving, the okay sign is explicitly separate from the thumbs up sign, as thumbs up is the sign that you're going to surface or that someone should surface. It's odd that two letters should be so powerful and that its origins should be shrouded in mystery. Yet from its very humble and perhaps joke beginnings, the word has spread all over the world.

And the fact that there is one universal word that everyone can use is to me okay. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thornton and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers. Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.