What is the origin of the phrase "O.K."?

Question

I read two entirely different explanations, both hilarious; and I was wondering what everyone else knows about this?
Thanks!

"Okay", no--I'm not kidding! The two explanations I've read: #1--That it stands for "Old Kinderhook", Martin Van Buren's nickname while he was campaigning. #2-- That apparently there was an "incorrect spelling craze" in the thirties, and that it stands for "oll korrect". I'm not dismissing other answers; I was just wondering what else you've all heard. Keep the interesting answers coming-- smart-assed answeres too, if it makes you feel better!!
Love you guys!
Gina

Answer 1

The great Tsarist General, Oleg Kalashnikov (ancestor of the more famous rifle designers of modern time) was known for his economical approach to almost everything. As a young subaltern in the Napoleonic wars, he was noted for having his men recover all the musket bullets they could from French bodies, so they could be melted down and recast. His first two wives left him because he insisted on saving every scrap of uneaten food for them to make an end-of-the-week "Kulak pie" with. If it was inedible, they were required to eat it all by themselves as an object lesson (he was widely known to be cruel, but fair).
When it came to military dispatches, his tight-fisted approach did not weaken. He would scrape off the paper to reuse it, collect ink flakes to dissolve and re-use, and make his own pen nibs out of toe-nail clippings and old chicken bones. He detested wasting ink, so when he received a query or some other document to which he had to reply, he insisted it be phrased as a simple yes-or-no question, so that if he wanted to reply 'no', he could just write (in cyrillic characters, of course) 'N' for Nyet. If he approved, he would write his own initials 'O.K.', as a ghastly experience when a toddler had left him emotionally unable to write out the character 'H' (the cyrillic character 'D', for 'Da'). Since Kalashnikov (or "Old OK", as his men liked to call him) was a great favorite of the four Tsars he served under (from Peter the Great to Nicholas the Unreasonable), this manner of marking a dispatch became widely copied in the Russian, then French, German and British Armies, long after its significance was lost. What was the question again?

Answer 2

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.

this is according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okay

Answer 3

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.

Allen Walker Read conclusively documented the early history of the abbreviation O.K., now also spelled okay, in a series of six articles in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later its spread to the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding O.K. and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself.

The first printed examples of O.K. can be found in the Boston newspapers of 1839 as part of a broader fad of forming and employing acronyms and initialisms, many of them barbarous. Other examples at the time included G.T.T. for "gone to Texas" and K.Y. for "know yuse". The general fad may have existed in spoken or informal written American English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. O.K. was intended as a misspelling of "all correct"; in the first few years it was often published with this gloss. (Note that gloss indicates the spread of a new word.) The gloss was sometimes varied with degraded spelling such as "Oll Korrect" or even "Ole Kurreck". Deliberate word play was associated with the acronym fad and was a yet broader contemporary American fad. In this first phase, O.K. was spread with the acronym fad from Boston to other American cities.

The first recorded appearance in the first phase was in the Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839, in the following passage (presumably 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.
In a second phase, O.K. was boosted by the 1840 presidential election, and thus marked to outlast the acronym fad from which it came. Democratic supporters of candidate Martin Van Buren equated "Oll Korrect" with "Old Kinderhook", which was a nickname for Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, NY. In response, Whig opponents attributed O.K., in the sense of "Oll Korrect", to Andrew Jackson's bad spelling. Thus, the election popularized both O.K. and a folk etymology that the acronym came from Andrew Jackson.

O.K. spread across the United States over the next two decades, and probably as far as Jamaica by 1848. The Civil War cemented its use, as much by confirming to American speakers that it was widely understood as by spreading it yet further. In the second half of the 19th century it spread to England and many other countries. In England it was first viewed as an improper Americanism, but it became widely accepted between the first and second World Wars.

Answer 4

"The only other theory with at least a degree of plausibility is that the term originated among Black slaves of West African origin, and represents a word meaning 'all right, yes indeed' in various West African languages. Unfortunately, historical evidence enabling the origin of this expression to be finally and firmly established may be hard to unearth."

Answer 5

Alternative derivations, since disproven, suggested that OK was from the Greek phrase ola kala for 'all well' used in the shipping industry. Another, actually favored by president Woodrow Wilson, was that OK was derived from the Choctaw 'okeh'.

Answer 6

meaning The word voiced by potential of human beings who rap their knuckles on a splash bit wood hoping for solid success. in the united kingdom the word 'touch wood' is used. beginning could desire to be the association that wood and trees have with solid spirits in mythology, or with the Christian circulate.

Answer 7

OK is short for "Ola Kala" which literally means "all good" which in other words means "all is good"...OK!

"Ola Kala", or OK for short, was a nautical message exchanged at sea by Greeks [it is still used today in Greece as a question/answer]

Answer 8

You're kidding, right? It's an abbreviation of the word: OKAY. And it's not a phrase - it's a word.

Answer 9

It's the word "okay" abbreviated.

Answer 10

back in the war it ment #0 kills