Sure it's popularisation may have been fueled by a particular person or group but did they really invent it? Or did they refit an existing abbreviation to fit their purpose? Or was it just invented in parallel?

One explanation I have heard about "OK" is that it was an abbreviation invented by Greek migrant dock workers in the USA. Apparently they used to write the abbreviation "OK" on boxes that contained what they were supposed to contain. "ola kala" is a Greek phrase that basically means "everything good".

Simultaneously:

- "Let's be done with this statement."

- "What's the interesting point here?"

- "We chose a civil approach here, going with indifference to these string of words"

- "Look how great the word 'OK' is. Two letters to express all this."

This version has actual evidence. It has the first recorded use. It situates it in the context of the fad at the time. It shows that in the first usage the author included the expanded version because other people wouldn't know it. It shows how it was replied to be someone who had read the article.

I find it odd when someone replies to a piece of research with their own story that they believe simply because they heard it first.

The proposed etymologies of OK fall into three main buckets:

* OK is an initialism for a misspelled variant of 'all correct'

* OK is a phonetic rendition of some phrase in $LANGUAGE (there are a few different such languages proposed)

* OK is an initialism for some phrase in $LANGUAGE (again, different phrases in different languages have been proposed)

Of these etymologies, the second bucket can be pretty thoroughly ruled out immediately: OK shows up in our sources first as an initialism, not 'okay', so it's not likely to be anything other than an initialism. As for deciding what it's an initialism of... well, "all correct" is actually the most reasonable on first guess because someone who is going to come up with a "just-so" story for a folk-etymology is likely to go for a phrase which actually initializes to OK rather than one which conspicuously doesn't, and thus someone advancing an "all correct" theory is likely to be able to point to evidence of its truth. Which we have.

I guess the issue I have is how much certainty do we assign to whatever origin we attribute.

I guess we can say that the explanation in the article is the best guess with the available evidence but what do we do if the evidence is limited?

Take the example I gave. How many cardboard boxes were around when people decided to start hunting down the first instance of “OK”? What is the likely hood of someone photographing one of those boxes given the prevalence of photography at the time and the importance of a cardboard box?

How 'OK' took over the world (2011) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14533098 - June 2017 (99 comments)

I think there have been other threads as well?

Disregarding potential inaccuracies, I love stories like these. Not particularly sure why, but I'm sure someone has a post somewhere about why we're so obsessed with the history of _our_ mundane.

If anyone is curious. Used to be escalade, but after the formation of escalade+elevator=escalator, we never really looked back.

Could be completely wrong though

> It's not that it was needed to 'fill a gap' in any language. Before 1839, English speakers had 'yes,' 'good,' 'fine,' 'excellent,' 'satisfactory' and 'all right.' What OK provided that the others did not was neutrality, a way to affirm or to express agreement without having to offer an opinion.

That, as is then explained - response without judgement, is a really big and useful gap to fill.

I'm assuming "OK" was needed because "yes" is otherwise used in so many contexts, including just as a nod to keep a conversation going, in no small part because of its neutrality. So a new word allows for more intentionality (which is important, and we still agree fills a really big gap)

And if I am wrong, and it does mean to affirm, then doesn’t that by necessity mean that it involves ‘offering an opinion’? Affirmation and/or agreement is not neutral.

"Understood", or "got it" expresses acknowledgement without agreement.

Of course, good luck keeping it in that semantic space even if you got it off the ground

Another word you can use for this purpose is "copy."

This became "yt?" in the next generation, unfortunately.

i like to confuse people by switching from 'k', 'ok', 'okay' within the same chat

Whereas I haven't ever seen "k" in a neutral context. Seems to me, this one is overwhelmingly used for sarcasm or awkwardness, so I think it carries a stronger message of disapproval than "ok"

...and then there is "kk" which is the exact opposite of "k" and is basically an extra-chill "ok".

Or maybe I'm just imagining things of course...

The finest slang of this generation - is it even current anymore? - is "yeet". A word that you can know the meaning of purely from context. We never had anything that rad (heh, heh) back in the 80s.

You bother with your shift key and putting quotes around pertinent terms in HN comments. Hence, I'll deduce that you do care about grammar and presentation when random strangers from another country get to read it and comment. However, I'm also sure that you (and so do I) prefer a more relaxed presentation when dealing with your mates.

If the recipients know you then they know you! If not: who gives a shit?

Now, do tell what is wrong with boomers? ... 8)

Except for all the evidence in the article about how this was a trend.

Wait, you mean we weren’t the generation to make acronyms trendy? (AFAIK, WTF, LOL, JK, BRB…)

Similar to zomg, because z is next to the shift key and they were going for OMG.

Apparently due to intermittent shifting of 1 into an exclamation point, occasionally yielding multiple 1s, which can look like a random eleven, which is humorous to skip to directly.

In terms of generations, I remember lots of short forms on BBSes, initialisms like wtf were used on radio during WWII, it's a long history.

I suspect every written language used them. I seem to recall Roman latin use having some.

Saving writing with ink pot and feather quill, probably motivated better than keyboard presses.

edit: Wow! Just read the article, and saw this:

K.G. for "no go" (as if spelled "know go")

Pre-widescale internet, I watched a movie from the 1950s I think, maybe 30s.

They were discussing something, two male actors, black and white movie, and one purposed something. The other responded "that's cage-y".

At the time, and in context, it seemed like the "word" meant just "constricted" or some such. The guy was disgusted when he said it, and his body language and vertical cutting motion with his hand, indicated "no".

Yet I was confused enough, that when a dictionary didn't help, I stored it away. What an incredible pleasure to have an answer now, 30 years later.

Anyhow, it seems this was still popular enough to be in a 30s to 50s era movie.

(Japan seems to like its pseudo-English initialisms — BGM [background music], SNS [social network services], OP/ED [opening/ending], etc.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_Latin_alphabe...

After that happened about 3 times I realised that their material was useless for things I knew anything about, and less than useless for anything I knew nothing about.

But zero killed and all good are both OK with me!

I've used it for decades in all sorts of contexts. I've converted a few people!

My life has included a lot of equipment, hardware, software, things that needed labeling, I reflect.

Also I am not good about throwing broken things away, thinking maybe I'll want to salvage parts from it later. So a sticker (in recent decades, blue painters tape) with "19981105 NG" becomes a very useful thing, eventually.

https://emojipedia.org/ng-button

That meant there are similar words for yes in other languages. See also Langue d'Oc / languedoc.

So very often it's written "all right" by folks writing the subtitles.

Let's say that the latter is indeed an overcorrection and alright is the correct version; is the first syllable not actually referring to the notion of everything i.e. all -- it's some other prefix?

Spelling out single letters phonetically is fairly common (tee fitting, wye adaptor, em dash, queue/cue, and the entire Greek alphabet) but it's very rare for multi-letter initialisms. The only others I can think of are deejay (disk jockey) and emcee (master of ceremonies). But okay, defying all odds as usual, got there!

ay tea em

eye pea

zee (or zed) pea em if you're into Stargate

> …but not in everyday speech as it was "slangy."

That hurdle has completely vanished, as by now we speak nothing but slang any more.