The diary of a planet

HOW DID THE WORD 'OK' COME INTO EXISTENCE?

I'm OK!~ everybody

OK is the one word that is understood by people of different languages. How this word came into existence is an absurd thing to write about. I don't even know why I thought about this question out of everything else that's going on in my head. Probably because I use this word the most while communicating. Yeah yeah!! I know I am Booooooringg! But this blog is not. :P

"OK" is the all-purpose American expression that was soon caught on by the English community and it ultimately became an all-purpose expression in dozens of other languages.

You'd actually be surprised to see how many theories run behind the existence of this word. The stories/ theories about the origin of "OK" is more than there are uses for it.

It is believed that this word may have come from the usage of "Aux Cayes" by people of the Haitian port, "au Quai" from Louisiana French, rum labeled "Aux Quais" from Puerto Rica, "okeh" from Chocktaw, "och aye" from the Scots, "waw kay" from Wolof, "olla kalla" from Greece, "omnes korrecta" from Rome.

Okay, let's not make this boring and move on to a few stories that revolve around the origin of this word:

1) Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote on the usage of the word OK in reports distributed in the 1960s. He said the word started being utilized in the 1830s. It was a short method of composing an alternate spelling of the words "all correct". Some people wrote "all correct" as "o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t," and utilized the letters O.K.

2) A railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly designed the word sometime in the past. He put the principal letters of his names - O and K - on each item people gave to him to send on the train.

3) Keokuk was an Indian chief (after whom Keokuk, in Iowa, is named). His admirers alluded to him as "Old Keokuk, he's all right", and the initials OK, stemmed from the common use of this phrase and it came to mean something very similar like "It's alright"

4) The last theory is one that I had believed for a very long time but I realized later that this is not the real reason for the existence of the word OK, however, it might be the reason why the usage of this word has become very common. It goes like this:

During world war I, at the end of the day, reports had to be sent to the headquarter about the number of soldiers killed. Say, for example, if 5 soldiers were killed, the report would say "5 K".
On a good day, when no one was killed the report would say "ZERO K" it soon got shortened to "0 K" and then the word "O.K." caught on giving the meaning "every this is alright"!

There are more theories but let's just stick to these 4 since they are the most interesting ones!

Ok probably is the shortest word that conveys a plethora of meanings. More meaning and context is being associated with it as the word is being carried through generations. Do you have any word in mind alike OK? Let me know in the comment section. :)

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