WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Grammar Minute: The History of OK

Episode Date: March 8, 2025

There's a surprisingly interesting story behind one of our favorite abbreviations. Learn more on today's episode of Grammar Minute!

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we're saving the English language 60 seconds at a time. I'm Lauren Smith, and I'm back with another episode about the word OK. Trust me, this is more interesting than you think. This weird word appears to be an abbreviation, but where does it come from? Nobody knows. But we can probably blame the folks of Boston in the 1830s, who had a newspaper fad of misspelling and then abbreviating random words. Yeah, this generation is not the only one to come up with memes and slangy internet speak.

Anyway, OK is thought to be an abbreviation of all correct, misspelled phonetically to start with O and K. This was the only abbreviation that survived, but there were a number of others that I think we should bring back. These are N-G, no-go, SP, small potatoes, and OW, all right. Just in case you thought L-O-L was bad enough. That's your Grammar Minute. Visit thegrammerminut.com for more tips and tricks.