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OK (/ˌoʊˈkeɪ/ ), with spelling variations including okay, okeh, O.K. and many others, is an English word (originating in American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet.

The origin of OK is disputed; however, most modern reference works hold that it originated around Boston as part of a fad in the late 1830s of abbreviating misspellings; that it is an initialism of "oll korrect" as a misspelling of "all correct". This origin was first described by linguist Allen Walker Read in the 1960s.

As an adjective, OK principally means "adequate" or "acceptable" as a contrast to "bad" ("The boss approved this, so it is OK to send out"); it can also mean "mediocre" when used in contrast with "good" ("The french fries were great, but the burger was just OK"). It fulfills a similar role as an adverb ("Wow, you did OK for your first time skiing!"). As an interjection, it can denote compliance ("OK, I will do that"), or agreement ("OK, that is fine"). It can mean "assent" when it is used as a noun ("the boss gave her the OK to the purchase") or, more colloquially, as a verb ("the boss OKed the purchase"). OK, as an adjective, can express acknowledgement without approval. As a versatile discourse marker or continuer, it can also be used with appropriate intonation to show doubt or to seek confirmation ("OK?", "Is that OK?"). Some of this variation in use and shape of the word is also found in other languages.

Etymologies

Many explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, but few have been discussed seriously by linguists. The following proposals have found mainstream recognition.

Boston abbreviation fad

The etymology that most reference works provide today is based on a survey of the word's early history in print: a series of six articles by Allen Walker Read in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964. He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later throughout the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding OK and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself. Read argues that, at the time of the expression's first appearance in print, a broader fad existed in the United States of "comical misspellings" and of forming and employing acronyms, themselves based on colloquial speech patterns:

The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 ... and used expressions like OFM, "our first men," NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright."

The general fad is speculated to have existed in spoken or informal written U.S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. OK's original presentation as "all correct" was later varied with spellings such as "Oll Korrect" or even "Ole Kurreck".

The term appears to have achieved national prominence in 1840, when supporters of the Democratic political party claimed during the 1840 United States presidential election that it stood for "Old Kinderhook", a nickname for the Democratic president and candidate for reelection, Martin Van Buren, a native of Kinderhook, New York. "Vote for OK" was snappier than using his Dutch name. In response, Whig opponents attributed OK, in the sense of "Oll Korrect", to the bad spelling of Andrew Jackson, Van Buren's predecessor. The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been a critical event in OK's history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States.

Read proposed an etymology of OK in "Old Kinderhook" in 1941. The evidence presented in that article was somewhat sparse, and the connection to "Oll Korrect" not fully elucidated. Various challenges to the etymology were presented; e.g., Heflin's 1962 article. However, Read's landmark 1963–1964 papers silenced most of the skepticism. Read's etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is now offered without reservation in most dictionaries. Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations:

Some believe that the Boston newspaper's reference to OK may not be the earliest. Some are attracted to the claim that it is of American-Indian origin. There is an Indian word, okeh, used as an affirmative reply to a question. Mr Read treated such doubting calmly. "Nothing is absolute," he once wrote, "nothing is forever."

Choctaw

In "All Mixed Up", the folk singer Pete Seeger sang that OK was of Choctaw origin, as the dictionaries of the time tended to agree. Three major American reference works (Webster's, New Century, Funk & Wagnalls) cited this etymology as the probable origin until as late as 1961.

The earliest written evidence for the Choctaw origin is provided in work by the Christian missionaries Cyrus Byington and Alfred Wright in 1825. These missionaries ended many sentences in their translation of the Bible with the particle "okeh", meaning "it is so", which was listed as an alternative spelling in the 1913 Webster's.

Byington's Dictionary of the Choctaw Language confirms the ubiquity of the "okeh" particle, and his Grammar of the Choctaw Language calls the particle -keh an "affirmative contradistinctive", with the "distinctive" o- prefix.

Subsequent Choctaw spelling books de-emphasized the spellings lists in favor of straight prose, and they made use of the particle but they too never included it in the word lists or discussed it directly. The presumption was that the use of particle "oke" or "hoke" was so common and self-evident as to preclude any need for explanation or discussion for either its Choctaw or non-Choctaw readership.

The Choctaw language was one of the languages spoken at this time in the Southeastern United States by a tribe with significant contact with African slaves. The major language of trade in this area, Mobilian Jargon, was based on Choctaw-Chickasaw, two Muskogean-family languages. This language was used, in particular, for communication with the slave-owning Cherokee (an Iroquoian-family language). For the three decades prior to the Boston abbreviation fad, the Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the U.S. government, after having fought alongside them at the Battle of New Orleans.

Arguments for a more Southern origin for the word note the tendency of English to adopt loan words in language contact situations, as well as the ubiquity of the OK particle. Similar particles exist in native language groups distinct from Iroquoian (Algonquian, Cree cf. "ekosi").

West African

An early attestation of the particle 'kay' is found in a 1784 transcription of a North Carolina slave, who, seeking to avoid being flogged, explained being found asleep in the canoe he had been ordered to bring to a certain place to pick up a European exploring near his newly-purchased property :

Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe; but me fall asleep...

A West African (Mande and/or Bantu) etymology has been argued in scholarly sources, tracing the word back to the Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke.

David Dalby first made the claim that the particle OK could have African origins in the 1969 Hans Wolff Memorial Lecture. His argument was reprinted in various newspaper articles between 1969 and 1971. This suggestion has also been mentioned by Joseph Holloway, who argued in the 1993 book The African Heritage of American English (co-written with a retired missionary) that various West African languages have near-homophone discourse markers with meanings such as "yes indeed" or which serve as part of the back-channeling repertoire. Frederic Cassidy challenged Dalby's claims, asserting that there is no documentary evidence that any of these African-language words had any causal link with its use in the American press.

The West African hypothesis had not been accepted by 1981 by any etymologists, yet has since appeared in scholarly sources published by linguists and non-linguists alike.

Alternative etymologies

A large number of origins have been proposed. Some of them are thought to fall into the category of folk etymology and are proposed based merely on apparent similarity between OK and one or another phrase in a foreign language with a similar meaning and sound. Some examples are:

• A corruption from the speech of the large number of descendants of Scottish and Ulster Scots (Scots-Irish) immigrants to North America, of the common Scots phrase och aye ("oh yes").
• A borrowing of the Greek phrase όλα καλά (óla kalá), meaning "all good".

Early history in print

Allen Walker Read identifies the earliest known use of O.K. in print as 1839, in the edition of 23 March of the Boston Morning Post. The announcement of a trip by the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society (a "frolicsome group" according to Read) received attention from the Boston papers. Charles Gordon Greene wrote about the event using the line that is widely regarded as the first instance of this strain of OK, complete with gloss:

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 gives a number of subsequent appearances in print. Seven instances were accompanied with glosses that were variations on "all correct" such as "oll korrect" or "ole kurreck", but five appeared with no accompanying explanation, suggesting that the word was expected to be well known to readers and possibly in common colloquial use at the time.

Various claims of earlier usage have been made. For example, it was claimed that the phrase appeared in a 1790 court record from Sumner County, Tennessee, discovered in 1859 by a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam, in which Andrew Jackson apparently said "proved a bill of sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for a Negro man, which was O.K.". The lawyer who successfully argued many Indian rights claims, Felix S. Cohen, supported the Jacksonian popularization of the term based on its Choctaw origin:

When Andrew Jackson popularized a word that his Choctaw neighbors always used in their councils to signify agreement, the aristocrats he threw out of office, always grasping at a chance to ridicule backwoods illiteracy, accused him of abbreviating and misspelling "All Correct". But O.K. (or okeh, in Choctaw) does not mean "all correct"; it means that we have reached a point where practical agreement is possible, however far from perfection it may lie.

David Dalby brought up a 1941 reference dating the term to 1815. The apparent notation "we arrived ok" appears in the hand-written diary of William Richardson traveling from Boston to New Orleans about a month after the Battle of New Orleans. However, Frederic Cassidy asserts that he personally tracked down this diary, writing:

After many attempts to track down this diary, Read and I at last discovered that it is owned by the grandson of the original writer, Professor L. Richardson, Jr., of the Department of Classical Studies at Duke University. Through his courtesy we were able to examine this manuscript carefully, to make greatly enlarged photographs of it, and to become convinced (as is Richardson) that, whatever the marks in the manuscript are, they are not OK.

Similarly, H. L. Mencken, who originally considered it "very clear that 'o. k.' is actually in the manuscript", later recanted his endorsement of the expression, asserting that it was used no earlier than 1839. Mencken (following Read) described the diary entry as a misreading of the author's self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind.

Another example given by Dalby is a Jamaican planter's diary of 1816, which records a black slave saying "Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him". Cassidy asserts that this is a misreading of the source, which actually begins "Oh, ki, massa ...", where ki is a phrase by itself:

In all other examples of this interjection that I have found, it is simply ki (once spelled kie). As here, it expresses surprise, amusement, satisfaction, mild expostulation, and the like. It has nothing like the meaning of the adjective OK, which in the earliest recorded examples means 'all right, good,' though it later acquires other meanings, but even when used as an interjection does not express surprise, expostulation, or anything similar.

Variations

Whether this word is printed as OK, Ok, ok, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage provide no consensus.

International usage

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "OK" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

1. ^ Based on the individual pronunciation of the letters o and k in the language rather than English.
2. Reading of the spelling without treating it as an abbreviation.

Gesture

In the United States and much of Europe a related gesture is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers. It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first. The gesture was popularized in the United States in 1840 as a symbol to support then-presidential candidate and incumbent vice president Martin Van Buren. This was because Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, derived from his hometown of Kinderhook, NY, had the initials O.K. Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures, some offensive, others devotional.

Computers

OK is used to label buttons in modal dialog boxes such as error messages or print dialogs, indicating that the user can press the button to accept the contents of the dialog box and continue. When the dialog box contains only one button, it is almost always labeled OK. When there are two buttons, they are most commonly labeled OK and Cancel. OK is commonly rendered in upper case and without punctuation: OK, rather than O.K. or Okay. The OK button can probably be traced to user interface research done for the Apple Lisa.

The Forth programming language prints ok when ready to accept input from the keyboard. This prompt is used on Sun, Apple, and other computers with the Forth-based Open Firmware (OpenBoot). The appearance of ok in inappropriate contexts is the subject of some humor.

In the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), upon which the World Wide Web is based, a successful response from the server is defined as OK (with the numerical code 200 as specified in RFC 2616). The Session Initiation Protocol also defines a response, 200 OK, which conveys success for most requests (RFC 3261).

Some Linux distributions, including those based on Red Hat Linux, display boot progress on successive lines on-screen, which include .

In Unicode

Several Unicode characters are related to visual renderings of OK:

• U+1F197 🆗 SQUARED OK
• U+1F44C 👌 OK HAND SIGN
• U+1F44D 👍 THUMBS UP SIGN
• U+1F592 🖒 REVERSED THUMBS UP SIGN
• U+1F646 🙆 FACE WITH OK GESTURE

Notes

1. "OK, 'most spoken word on the planet', marks its 175th anniversary". South China Morning Post. 23 March 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
2. ^ Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth (17 March 2021), "The prosody and phonetics of OKAY in American English", in Betz, Emma; Deppermann, Arnulf; Mondada, Lorenza; Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (eds.), OKAY across Languages: Toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, vol. 34, John Benjamins (published 2021), pp. 131–173, doi:10.1075/slsi.34.05cou, ISBN 9789027260284, ISSN 1879-3983, S2CID 233623150
3. Beaver 2011.
4. ^ Yngve, Victor. "On getting a word in edgewise," page 568. Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting Chicago Linguistic Society, 1970.
5. Betz, Emma; Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (17 March 2021), "Introduction: OKAY emerging as a cross-linguistic object of study in prior research", in Betz, Emma; Deppermann, Arnulf; Mondada, Lorenza; Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (eds.), OKAY across Languages: Toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction, Studies in Language and Social Interaction, John Benjamins (published 2021), pp. 2–28, doi:10.1075/slsi.34.01bet, ISBN 9789027260284, ISSN 1879-3983, S2CID 233639474
6. YouTube. Archived from the original on 11 December 2021.
7.  • Bailey, Richard W. (2002). "Allen Walker Read, American Scholar". Milestones in the History of English in America. By Read, Allen W. Bailey, Richard W. (ed.). Durham, NC: American Dialect Society, Duke University Press.
    • Bailey, Richard W. (December 2004). "Allen Walker Read, American Scholar" (PDF). ETC: A Review of General Semantics: 433–437. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
8. ^ "OK or o·kay". American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin. (good summary of the results of Read's six articles)
9. *Read, Allen W (1963). "The first stage in the history of "O.K"". American Speech. 38 (1): 5–27. doi:10.2307/453580. JSTOR 453580.
   *Read, Allen W (1963). "The second stage in the history of "O.K"". American Speech. 38 (2): 83–102. doi:10.2307/453285. JSTOR 453285.
   *Read, Allen W (1963). "Could Andrew Jackson spell?". American Speech. 38 (3): 188–195. doi:10.2307/454098. JSTOR 454098.
   *Read, Allen W (1964). "The folklore of "O.K."". American Speech. 39 (1): 5–25. doi:10.2307/453922. JSTOR 453922.
   *Read, Allen W (1964). "Later stages in the history of "O.K."". American Speech. 39 (2): 83–101. doi:10.2307/453111. JSTOR 453111.
   *Read, Allen W (1964). "Successive revisions in the explanation of "O.K."". American Speech. 39 (4): 243–267. doi:10.2307/454321. JSTOR 454321.
10. Adams 1985.
11. ^ "Allen Read". The Economist. 24 October 2002. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
12. Read 1941.
13. Heflin 1962.
14. ^ Fay 2007.
15. ^ "okeh". Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. 1913. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 29 December 2014 – via The Free Dictionary by Farlex.
16. Byington 1915.
17. Byington 1870, p. 14.
18. Flickinger, Robert Elliot (1911). The Choctaw Freedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy. gutenberg.org.
19. Tiya Miles, Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom, University of California Press, 2005, pp. 170-173
20. "SLAVERY" Archived 18 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society, Retrieved 29 December 2014
21. Badger 1971.
22. Hopkins.
23. DeRosier, Arthur Jr. (1967). "Andrew Jackson and Negotiations for The Removal of the Choctaw Indians". The Historian. 29 (3): 343–362. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.1967.tb01782.x.
24. Smyth 1784, pp. 1:118–121.
25. ^ Cassidy 1981.
26. Holloway & Vass 1993.
27. "Online Etymology Dictionary".
28. Lighter, Jonathon, (1994). The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, 708.
29. LINGUIST List 4.705. 14 September 1993.
30. Read, Allen W (1964). "The folklore of "O.K."". American Speech. 39 (1): 5–25. doi:10.2307/453922. JSTOR 453922.
31. Weber 1942.
32. Jacksonian America: "OK, O.K. or Okay?" "History of Middle Tennessee" by A.W. Putnam, 1859, page 252
33. Cohen, Felix S. (Spring 1952). "Americanizing the White Man". The American Scholar. 21 (2): 177–191. JSTOR 41206885.
34. Heflin 1941, p. 90.
35. Wait 1941.
36. Mencken 1945, p. 275.
37. Dalby, David (8 January 1971). "O.K., A.O.K and O KE; The Remarkable Career Of an Americanism That Began in Africa". The New York Times. p. 31. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
     • Dalby, David (14 January 1971). "The Etymology of O.K.". The Times.
38. "I'm OK, you're okay". Grammarphobia. 11 September 2008. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
39. Jennewein, Paul. "Okay is Okeh: Along the Cape Fear". Wilmington Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.), 10 June 1977, p. 1-D. Retrieved on 27 July 2015.
40. "Yeep! Yeep! Amerikansk Yeep!". LIFE Magazine. 23 July 1945. p. 62. Retrieved 13 September 2021. {{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
41. "Is the origin of the phrase "Okie Dokie Smokie" Racist?". Wordwizard. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
42. "Overview – Okie-Dokie, Artichokie!". Grace Lin. Archived from the original on 10 February 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
43. {{cite magazine url=https://time.com/archive/6872981/the-press-calm-voice-from-space/ |magazine=Time |title=Calm Voice from Space |access-date=2024-06-04 |date=1962-03-02 |publisher=Time Inc.}}
44. Wolfe, Tom (1988). The Right Stuff (17th ed.). Toronto: Bantam Books. p. 227. ISBN 9780553275568. Retrieved 28 June 2015 – via Google Books.
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46. "oukej". Kartotéka lexikálního archivu. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
47. Søren Sandager Sørensen; Jakob Steensig (2021). Rising OKAY in Third Position in Danish Talk-in-Interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 176–204. doi:10.1075/SLSI.34.06SOR. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366166. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
48. (in Dutch) Taaladvies.net
49. Wennergren, Bertilo. "Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko". bertilow.com. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
50. ^ Leelo Keevallik; Matylda Weidner (17 March 2021). OKAY projecting embodied compliance to directives. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 338–362. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366176. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
51. Jóansson, Tórður (1997). English loanwords in Faroese. Fannir. ISBN 978-99918-49-14-0. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
52. Alfonso-Gregorio, Nikki (7 January 2022). "Why the phrases 'okay lang yan' and 'push mo lang' won't help you cope with the stresses of the pandemic". SBS Language. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
53. "Kielitoimiston sanakirja". Kielitoimiston sanakirja (in Finnish). Retrieved 8 June 2024.
54. "Kielitoimiston sanakirja". Kielitoimiston sanakirja (in Finnish). Retrieved 8 June 2024.
55. Aino Koivisto; Marja-Leena Sorjonen (17 March 2021). OKAY as a response to informings in Finnish. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 206–233. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366172. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
56. Elwys De Stefani; Lorenza Mondada (17 March 2021). A resource for action transition: OKAY and its embodied and material habitat. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 302–336. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366175. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
57. "Duden | o. k. | Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition, Herkunft". www.duden.de. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
58. Henrike Helmer; Emma Betz; Arnulf Deppermann (17 March 2021). Coordination of OKAY, nods, and gaze in claiming understanding and closing topics. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 363–393. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366177. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
59. Spilioti, Tereza (2009). "Graphemic representation of text-messaging: Alphabet-choice and code-switches in Greek SMS". Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). 19 (3): 393–412. doi:10.1075/prag.19.3.05spi.
60. "Hungarian-English dictionary". SZTAKI Szótár. Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
61. "ISLEX-orðabókin". ISLEX. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
62. ^ Satomi Kuroshima; Stephanie Hyeri Kim; Kaoru Hayano; Mary Shin Kim; Seung-Hee Lee (17 March 2021). When OKAY is repeated: Closing the talk so far in Korean and Japanese conversations. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 236–265. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366173. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
63. (in Norwegian) Ordbok.uib.no
64. Ana Cristina Ostermann; Katariina Harjunpää (17 March 2021). OKAY in health helpline calls in Brazil: Managing alignment and progressivity. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 270–299. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366174. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
65. "ОК — Teletype". blog.tema.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 20 December 2024.
66. Emma Betz; Marja-Leena Sorjonen (17 March 2021). OKAY emerging as a cross-linguistic object of study in prior research. Studies in Language and Social Interaction. pp. 2–28. doi:10.1075/SLSI.34.01BET. ISBN 978-90-272-6028-4. Wikidata Q121366167. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
67. "Slovenské slovníky". Slovenské slovníky (in Slovak). Retrieved 2 June 2024.
68. "Slovenské slovníky". Slovenské slovníky (in Slovak). Retrieved 2 June 2024.
69. "Fran/iskanje/okej". Fran (in Slovenian). Retrieved 2 June 2024.
70. Fernández, Dámaris (28 May 2023). "Del "alucina vecina" al "chachi piruli, Juan Pelotilla": las 30 expresiones de los millennials que son todo un descubrimiento para la generación Z". La Razón (in European Spanish). Retrieved 14 May 2024.
71. "Nationalencyklopedin". NE.se (in Swedish). 2 June 2024. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
72. "โอเค". Thai-language.com. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
73. "okey". Nişanyan Sözlük (in Turkish). Retrieved 2 June 2024.
74. Luong, Ngoc. Personal interview by Nu Alpha Pi. 13 April 2010.
75. ^ Armstrong, Nancy & Melissa Wagner. (2003) Field Guide to Gestures: How to Identify and Interpret Virtually Every Gesture Known to Man. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.
76. Dangerous Body Language Abroad Archived 25 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine, by Matthew Link. Posted 26 July 2010 01:00 PM. Retrieved on 17 November 2012
77. Body Language. Obscene, to be used with extreme moderation! Retrieved on 17 November 2012
78. "Apple user interface designers pick OK". Folklore.org. 17 July 1980. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
79. The C Days of Y2K. . USENIX. 23 November 1999. Retrieved 21 February 2011.

References

• Adams, Cecil (1 January 1985). "What does "OK" stand for?". The Straight Dope. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
• Badger, Herbert Andrew (1971). "A Descriptive Grammar of Mississippi Choctaw". University of Southern Mississippi. OCLC 30845851. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Beath, Paul L. (October 1946). "'O.K.' in Radio Sign Language". American Speech. 21 (3): 235. JSTOR 486779.
• Beaver, David (20 February 2011). "Not OK". Language Log. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
• Byington, Cryus (1870). Grammar of the Choctaw Language. McCalla & Stavely.
• Byington, Cyrus (1915). A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language. U.S. Government Printing Office.
• Cassidy, Frederic G. (Winter 1981). "OK—Is It African?". American Speech. 56 (4): 269–273. doi:10.2307/455123. JSTOR 455123.
• Eubanks, Ralph T. (October 1960). "The Basic Derivation of 'O.K.'". American Speech. 35 (3): 188–192. doi:10.2307/453884. JSTOR 453884.
• Fay, Jim (14 July 2007). "The Choctaw Expression "Okeh" and the Americanism "Okay"". Illinois Prairie. Archived from the original on 24 December 2010. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
• Greco, Frank A.; Degges, Mary (Autumn–Winter 1975). "The Etymology of OK Again". American Speech. 50 (3/4): 333–335. doi:10.2307/3088024. JSTOR 3088024.
• Heflin, Woodford A. (April 1941). "'O. K.', But What Do We Know about It?". American Speech. 16 (2): 87–95. doi:10.2307/487428. JSTOR 487428.
• Heflin, Woodford A. (December 1962). "'O. K.' and Its Incorrect Etymology". American Speech. 37 (4): 243–248. doi:10.2307/453377. JSTOR 453377.
• Hopkins, Nicolas A. The Native Languages of the Southeastern United States (PDF) (Report). Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. Retrieved 11 September 2012.
• Holloway, Joseph E.; Vass, Winifred Kellersberger (1993). The African Heritage of American English. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253328381.
• Levin, Harry; Gray, Deborah (Autumn 1983). "The Lecturer's OK". American Speech. 58 (3): 195–200. doi:10.2307/455226. JSTOR 455226.
• Matthews, Albert (December 1941). "A Note on 'O.K.'". American Speech. 16 (4): 256–259. doi:10.2307/486564. JSTOR 486564.
• Mencken, H. L. (1936). The American Language (4th ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 206–207. ISBN 0394400755.
• Mencken, H. L. (April 1942). "'O. K.,' 1840". American Speech. 17 (2): 126–127. doi:10.2307/486458. JSTOR 486458.
• Mencken, H. L. (1945). The American Language: Supplement I. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0394400763.
• Mencken, H. L. (24 September 1949). "The Life and Times of O.K." The New Yorker (published 1 October 1949). pp. 57–61.
• McMillan, B. (April 1942). "'O.K.,' A Comment". American Speech. 17 (2): 127. JSTOR 486459.
• Pound, Louise (December 1942). "Some Folk-Locutions". American Speech. 17 (4): 247–250. doi:10.2307/487190. JSTOR 487190.
• Pound, Louise (October 1951). "Two Queries". American Speech. 26 (3): 223–224. doi:10.2307/453088. JSTOR 453088.
• Pyles, Thomas (May 1952). "'Choctaw' Okeh Again: A Note". American Speech. 27 (2): 157–158. JSTOR 454369.
• Read, Allen W. (19 July 1941). "The Evidence on O.K.". Saturday Review of Literature. pp. 3–4, 10–11.
• Rife, J. M. (October 1966). "The Early Spread of "O. K." to Greek Schools". American Speech. 41 (3): 238. JSTOR 454033.
• Smyth, J. F. D. (1784). A Tour in the United States of America. G. Robinson. ISBN 9780665412226.
• Wait, William Bell (April 1941). "Richardson's 'O. K.' of 1815". American Speech. 16 (2): 136. doi:10.2307/487427. JSTOR 487427.
• Walser, Richard (May 1965). "A Boston "O.K." Poem in 1840". American Speech. 40 (2): 120–126. doi:10.2307/453718. JSTOR 453718.
• Weber, Robert (April 1942). "A Greek O.K.". American Speech. 17 (2): 127–128. JSTOR 486460.

Further reading

• Metcalf, Allan. (2011). OK: The Improbable Story of America's Greatest Word. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-537793-4
• Betz, Emma; Deppermann, Arnulf; Mondada, Lorenza; Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (2021). OKAY across Languages: Toward a comparative approach to its use in talk-in-interaction. Studies in Language and Social Interaction 34. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/slsi.34. hdl:10138/339675. ISBN 9789027260284. S2CID 243148719.

External links

• Why we say "OK" - Vox News produced video
• The Choctaw Expression Okeh and the Americanism Okay
• Ok. Let's continue.
• NPR: The Origin of OK (audio)
• FAQ: "OK"
• BBC: How 'OK' took over the world. Retrieved 18 February 2011.

• American English words
• English words
• Interjections
• Slang