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I've had numerous conversations over the past two years with other authors, and even my editor Michael, about the "proper usage" of OK or Okay. All of which begs the question of origin--where did it come from and how did it start being used?
I recently came across the following from a retired American university professor:
What did the abbreviation "o.k." originally stand for?
All correct.
Newsroom slang: In spring 1839, readers of the Boston Morning Post likely noticed two small, obscure letters at the bottom of the paper's second column: "o.k." These letters were the fact-checking team's abbreviation for "all correct." Although it symbolized the team's sign-off for article accuracy, the abbreviation hardly seems accurate in and of itself. That's because it's not.
The joke that changed a language: The OK we know, love, and use today actually started as the editorial team's joke. In 1800s newsrooms, young staffers thought deliberately misspelling words in abbreviated slang was funny. They use abbreviations like "KG" to represent "know go" (the misspelling of no-go), and OK was their humorous alternative of "oll korrect."
When OK hit Washington: The term OK gained so much linguistic traction that Martin Van Buren coined it as his presidential campaign slogan in 1840. For Van Buren, who had the nickname "Old Kinderhook" from his hometown in upstate New York, the slogan OK insinuated that "Old Kinderhook was all correct." Van Buren may have lost the race to William Henry Harrison, but OK was the real victor. The abbreviation spread like wildfire, later earning the spelling adaptation "okay" in the 1868 novel "Little Women."
Then there's the matter of proper usage of one versus the other.
In American English it's fine to use either one, and we'll need our friends across the pond to weigh in on British English usage. The main determinant is following a style guide: the Associate Press recommends "OK" and the Chicago Manual of Style recommends "okay."
According to Mignon Fogarty (founder of Quick and Dirty Tips), because "okay" is the form recommended by Chicago, and Chicago is the dominant style guide in the publishing industry, "okay" is the dominant form in fiction, but "OK" wins overall in common usage...at least in the US! 8o
Bensiamin
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Firstly, Mignon Fogarty sounds so ridiculously made up I had to resort to Google. She's real, it's not the pen name of a blind writer of F/F HEA fiction I thought it'd be. Ah well.
Across the pond, in the land where colour is spelt properly, ok, okay and, my favourite, okey-dokey are all good.
Honestly, why the supposed arbiter of correct English usage is headquartered in Chicago is quite beyond me. In my world it would be located in a small decrepit shack next to the Cam, and run by a doddering gray haired don (played by Hugh Grant). Not that it matters, as English is ever changing: Whatevs, simples, chillax, sumfin, Jafaican, Jedi and lightsabre are now all in the hallowed Oxford English Dictionary. One's mind boggles.
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats." - Albert Schweitzer
It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
- from Alex Truelove
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 39
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As a writer, I enjoy words and usages, like I imagine most of us do. OK has always interested me because it keeps changing. When I was young, in printed material I often saw o.k. used. Then we went through a short peroiod of okay, followed by a much longer one of OK. That was the usage for just about all published material for quite some time. Now, recently, books and magazines and such have returned to okay. This has happened during the 15 years I've been writing. My early stories all use OK. My most recent use okay. Have to stay current, you know.
C
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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Use whatever you want to use. It's your story, after all.
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Merkin
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Getting started |
Location: Virginia, U.S.A.
Registered: October 2017
Messages: 13
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Hey, Cole, is it OK for Californians to hide their hipness behind the Canadian flag? Just askin'.
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 39
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If Trump is reelected, that Canadian flag will look much more beckoning! Crossing that border is a long days drive from SoCal, but something to be considered.
C
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Geron Kees
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: February 2016
Messages: 150
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"cole parker wrote on Fri, 18 September 2020 18:17"If Trump is reelected, that Canadian flag will look much more beckoning! Crossing that border is a long days drive from SoCal, but something to be considered.
C[/font-size]
--It's a four-hour drive for us. I know, because I've checked! 
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"cole parker wrote on Fri, 18 September 2020 19:17"If Trump is re-elected...
C
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Noooo! Don't even posit the idea. Please!
[Updated on: Sat, 19 September 2020 19:59]
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats." - Albert Schweitzer
It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
- from Alex Truelove
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I've already got a place promised for me in the empty mother-in-law suite of a friend near Toronto! LOL
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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cole parker
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Toe is in the water |
Location: California
Registered: July 2018
Messages: 39
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With the passing of RBG, if they are able to get another Surpreme Court Justice nominated before Trump is trumped, we don't need to worry about the usage of 'okay'. We won't be using the word much.
C
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"cole parker wrote on Sun, 20 September 2020 08:02"
With the passing of RBG, if they are able to get another Surpreme Court Justice nominated before Trump is trumped, we don't need to worry about the usage of 'okay'. We won't be using the word much.
C[/font-family]
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We are completely and totally fucked...
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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This isn't on the use of OK vs. okay, but it is on a similar question!
Found recently on Facebook:
[Updated on: Tue, 27 October 2020 15:02]
Bensiamin
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Mark
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Likes it here |
Location: Earth
Registered: April 2013
Messages: 279
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I seem to remember Timmy using a slight variation of that in his signature once.
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