What do the letters O.K. stand for?

Question

We say it all day long. Someone once said it was an illiterates initials for "All Correct" or yes as we know it. And that he/she didn't know how to spell it.
Anyone know for sure?

I think Okay came much later, after the initial one. Don't mind the pun, and I may be wrong, that's why I'm asking.

Answer 1

Actually, one of the most widely accepted origins for the work "OK" is this theory:

Andrew Jackson, one of the founders of the Democratic Party, and the seventh President of the United States, commonly signed bills with the letters "OK" (this is completely true). When asked about his usage of the two-letter acronym on bills, responded that OK stood for "oll korrect," a phonetic misspelling of "all correct." The likelihood of this story is supported by the fact that Andrew Jackson had a reputation as a good soldier and frontiersman, but not as of a scholar.

There is more to this, however. Allen Walker Read wrote six articles in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964 on the origins of the word. He dismissed the Choctaw origins as mythic folklore, emphasizing the possibility that "OK" arose as a cute abbreviation.

He believed the word to be short for any of several different spellings of "all correct", including "Oll Korrect", "Orl Korrect", and "Ole Kurreck". There was a fad in the 1830s and 1840s involving the intentional misspelling of common phrases, and referring to them by the resulting initials. These may have been influenced by the Low German phrase "Oll klor", which would have been spoken by emigrants from Northern Germany. The fad included many other briefly popular abbreviations such as OW, "oll wright" (all right) and KY, "know yuse" (no use), none of which has survived. The first recorded use of "OK" in this sense was in the Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839, in the following passage (mostly probably written by editor Charles Gordon Greene):

The above is from the Providence Journal, the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing "through the city" of Providence.—We said our brethren were going to New York in the Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday. The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells", is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train-band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.

Read discounts evidence of earlier popular origins of the word; for instance, a Boston businessman used it in a daily journal in 1815, but Read argued in context it does not seem to be used in the sense of "okay, good".

Some have claimed U.S. President Andrew Jackson invented OK as an abbreviation of "Oll Korrect"; it is possible that Jackson used the term, since it was in currency towards the end of his life. Jackson may also have known the similar Choctaw word.

Answer 2

Okay is a term of approval or assent, often written as OK, O.K., ok, okay, okee, okie, or more informally as simply kay, k or kk. Sometimes used with other words, as in "okey, dokey". When used to describe the quality of a thing, it denotes acceptability. However, its usage can also be strongly approving; as with most slang, its usage is determined by context. It could be one of the most widely used words on Earth, since it has spread from English to many other languages.

The historical record shows that O.K. appeared as an abbreviation for oll korrect (a conscious misspelling of "all correct") in Boston newspapers in 1839, and was reinterpreted as "Old Kinderhook" in the 1840 United States presidential election. Because it is a recent word born of word play, and because it is so widely used, O.K. has also invited many folk etymologies. These competing theories are not supported by the historical written record, except in that folk and joke etymologies influenced the true history of the word. Since the 19th century, the word has spread around the world, the okay spelling of it first appearing in British writing in the 1860s. Spelled out in full in the 20th century, 'okay' has come to be in everyday use among English speakers, and borrowed by non-English speakers. Occasionally a humorous form okee dokee (or okey dokey) is used, as well as A-ok.


hope this helped you =)!

peace and love,
rob

Answer 3

It started with the Rum smugglers from Caribbean islands to the Florida Keys. They were French speaking, and would signal: "Aux Quaies" or "Aux Keys" - either "At the wharves" or "AT the Keys" - I'm not sure which. To signal faster, with lights, they just signalled the two letters O K - which pronounced what they wanted to say.
Perhaps the "Oll Korrect" was a later humurous justification of the term?
Then again, the story is what I was told when I went to school - I have no hard and fast evidence.

Answer 4

O.K. stands for okay.

All it is, is an acknowledgment of understanding and agreement.

Someone tells you to do something and if you'll agree with them, you'll most likely answer in okay(O.K.). If you do not agree with them, you won't answer in okay.

Just like the military uses "roger that" or "good to go".

Army "Hooah"
Marines "Ooorah, Kill,"

It's something that was started back in the day and continued ever since.

We don't have a definite history as to why, when, or where it started, we can only speculate. But as far as we know, it started before our time.

Answer 5

Actually, there is a theory posed in Websters New World Dictionary, that an editor, C. G. Green, in the Boston Morning Post, in 1839 used it as an abreviation for "oll korrect", a facetious spelling of "all correct". Supposedly, this is the first usage of "OK".

Answer 6

Much scholarship has been expended on the origins of OK, but Allen Walker Read has conclusively proved that OK is based on a sort of joke. Someone pronounced the phrase all correct as oll (or orl) correct, and the same person or someone else spelled it oll korrect, which abbreviated gives us OK.

Answer 7

The letters, not to keep you guessing, stand for "oll korrect." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s.

Answer 8

They stand for "oll korrect." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s.

Answer 9

I've heard O.K. came from Civil War times when they report killed and wounded people in battle 0 k meas Zero Killed and is sign to a good thing.

Who told me this story perhaps made me an innocent joke but make sense...

Answer 10

Actually, the word is okay. OK is a quick way of typing it, though the two letters don't actually stand for anything.