Occasionally I’ll dive into some of these “this day in history” Web sites just to see what famous event took place that day. Today, I checked out history.com and learned that the phrase “OK” just turned 170 years old. “OK” is one of those odd phrases – it’s not exactly a word, it’s not exactly a sentence. It’s two letters smashed together and it means a variety of things.

If someone asks how you’re doing and you respond with an “OK” it can mean a few things depending on how you say it. A cheery “OK” could mean that things are looking up. A dour “OK” means that you could be better. It can also be both a question and an answer. Question – “I’m going to the store to get some milk, OK?” Answer – “OK.” There probably aren’t two more versatile letters in the English language.

Turns out that OK was originally short for “oll correct” and was first printed in the Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839. “Oll correct” was an intentional misspelling of the slang term “all correct.” It seems that American youth at the time had a penchant for misspelling words on purpose and using the abbreviations of these misspellings as slang. So “all correct” became “oll correct” and that became simply, “OK.” If it sounds odd, is it any more strange than the texting language that’s been developed by the modern teen?

History.com points out some other misspelled abbreviations from the same time period. “KY” stood for “know yuse”, or “no use.” “KG” meant “know go”, as in “no go.” And “OW” meant “oll wright” or “all right.”

So I suppose the teens of 1839 weren’t so different than today’s, with their mysterious texting shorthand – pretty “kewl” if you ask me.

Here’s some more reading for you, OK?
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