That’s O.K. with me. It’s going to be okay. OK, Google… ‘OK’ means things are fine or went well, or that something’s approved. But what does O.K. stand for and from where did the word originate?
A few proposed etymologies are connected to OK’s history, but in this Vox video, we’ll focus on ‘Oll Korrect,’ a bit of “comically misspelled” slang from Boston in the early 1800s. “Young intellectual types” of the day used it to mean ‘all correct’—not dissimilar to modern day web and text terms like BRB and LOL.
Learn about their insider acronyms and how one easy-to-transmit acronym spread across the country and into everyday usage in Why we say “OK”.
Watch more telegraphy videos and etymology videos, including Mysteries of the Vernacular and Where Do New Words Come From?Bonus: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
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