Editing OK (section)

==Etymologies==
{{See also|List of proposed etymologies of OK}}

Many explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, but few have been discussed seriously by [[Linguistics|linguists]]. The following proposals have found mainstream recognition.<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UnIDL-eHOs |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/1UnIDL-eHOs| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|title=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

===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]]<ref name="bailey">{{*}}{{cite book |contributor-first=Richard W. |contributor-last=Bailey |contribution=Allen Walker Read, American Scholar |last=Read |first=Allen W. |editor-last=Bailey |editor-first=Richard W. |title=Milestones in the History of English in America |publisher=American Dialect Society, Duke University Press |location=Durham, NC |year= 2002}}<br />{{*}}{{cite journal |first=Richard W. |last=Bailey |date=December 2004 |title=Allen Walker Read, American Scholar |pages=433–437 |journal=ETC: A Review of General Semantics |url=http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/61-4-bailey.pdf |access-date=6 February 2015 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924021442/http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/61-4-bailey.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> in the journal ''American Speech'' in 1963 and 1964.<ref name=AHD/><ref name="read">*{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1963 |title= The first stage in the history of "O.K" |journal= American Speech |volume= 38 |issue= 1| pages= 5–27 |jstor=453580 |doi=10.2307/453580}}<br />*{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1963 |title= The second stage in the history of "O.K" |journal= American Speech |volume= 38 |issue= 2| pages= 83–102 |jstor=453285 |doi=10.2307/453285}}<br />*{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1963 |title= Could Andrew Jackson spell? |journal= American Speech |volume= 38 |issue= 3| pages= 188–195 |jstor=454098 |doi=10.2307/454098}}<br />*{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1964 |title= The folklore of "O.K." |journal= American Speech |volume= 39 |issue= 1| pages= 5–25 |jstor=453922 |doi=10.2307/453922}}<br />*{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1964 |title= Later stages in the history of "O.K." |journal= American Speech |volume= 39 |issue= 2| pages= 83–101 |jstor=453111 |doi=10.2307/453111}}<br />*{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1964 |title= Successive revisions in the explanation of "O.K." |journal= American Speech |volume= 39 |issue= 4| pages= 243–267 |jstor=454321 |doi=10.2307/454321}}</ref> 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 [[False etymology|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:

{{blockquote|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."{{sfn|Adams|1985}}}}

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 Party (United States)|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 (town), New York|Kinderhook, New York]]. "Vote for OK" was snappier than using his Dutch name.<ref name="The Economist"/> In response, [[Whig Party (United States)|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.{{sfn|Read|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.{{sfn|Heflin|1962}} 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.<ref name=AHD>{{cite web |title=OK or o·kay |url=https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=OK |work=American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language |publisher=Houghton Mifflin}} (good summary of the results of Read's six articles)</ref> Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations:

{{blockquote|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."<ref name="The Economist">{{cite news|title=Allen Read |url=https://www.economist.com/node/1403400 |access-date=29 December 2014 |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |date=24 October 2002}}</ref>}}

===Choctaw===
In "All Mixed Up", the folk singer [[Pete Seeger]] sang that ''OK'' was of [[Choctaw]] origin,{{sfn|Fay|2007}} 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.{{sfn|Fay|2007}}

The earliest written evidence for the Choctaw origin is provided in work by the Christian missionaries [[Cyrus Byington]] and Alfred Wright in 1825.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} These missionaries ended many sentences in their translation of the Bible with the [[Grammatical particle|particle]] "okeh", meaning "it is so",{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} which was listed as an alternative spelling in the 1913 Webster's.<ref name=okeh>{{cite web |url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/okeh |title=okeh |work=Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary |year= 1913 |access-date=29 December 2014 |via=The Free Dictionary by Farlex |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229203357/http://www.thefreedictionary.com/okeh |archive-date=2014-12-29}}</ref>

Byington's ''Dictionary of the Choctaw Language'' confirms the ubiquity of the "okeh" particle,{{sfn|Byington|1915}} and his ''Grammar of the Choctaw Language'' calls the particle ''-keh'' an "affirmative contradistinctive", with the "distinctive" o- prefix.{{sfn|Byington|1870|p=14}}

{{blockquote|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.{{sfn|Fay|2007}}}}

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.<ref>{{cite book|first=Robert Elliot |last= Flickinger |year=1911 |title=The Choctaw Freedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23321/23321-h/23321-h.htm|publisher=gutenberg.org}}</ref> 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<ref name="miles">[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVQvhgEuKZMC&pg=PA170 Tiya Miles, ''Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom''], University of California Press, 2005, pp. 170-173</ref><ref name="enc">[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SL003.html "SLAVERY"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101018205458/https://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/S/SL003.html |date=18 October 2010}}, ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture'', Oklahoma Historical Society, Retrieved 29 December 2014</ref> [[Cherokee]] (an [[Iroquoian]]-family language).{{sfn|Badger|1971}}{{sfn|Hopkins}} For the three decades prior to the Boston abbreviation fad, the Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the U.S. government,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = DeRosier | first1 = Arthur Jr. | year = 1967 | title = Andrew Jackson and Negotiations for The Removal of the Choctaw Indians | journal = The Historian | volume = 29 | issue = 3| pages = 343–362| doi = 10.1111/j.1540-6563.1967.tb01782.x }}</ref> 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 (language)|Algonquian]], [[Cree]] cf. "[http://www.creedictionary.com/search/index.php?q=ekosi&scope=1 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 :

{{blockquote|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...{{sfn|Smyth|1784|pp=1:118–121}}}}

A West African (Mande and/or Bantu) etymology has been argued in scholarly sources, tracing the word back to {{Clarify|date=September 2023|reason=Which? Wolof and Bantu are utterly unrelated and spoken 2000 km apart.|text=the [[Wolof language|Wolof]] and [[Bantu languages|Bantu]]}} word ''waw-kay'' or the [[Mande languages|Mande]] (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase ''o ke''.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

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.{{sfn|Cassidy|1981}} 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 [[Backchannel (linguistics)|back-channeling]] repertoire.<ref name="Yngve, Victor page 568"/>{{sfn|Holloway|Vass|1993}} 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.{{sfn|Cassidy|1981}}

The West African hypothesis had not been accepted by 1981 by any etymologists,{{sfn|Cassidy|1981}}<ref name="onlineetym">{{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ok|title=Online Etymology Dictionary}}</ref><ref name="lighter">Lighter, Jonathon, (1994).  ''The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang,'' 708.</ref> yet has since appeared in scholarly sources published by linguists and non-linguists alike.<ref name="linguistlist.org">[https://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-705/ LINGUIST List 4.705]. 14 September 1993.</ref>

===Alternative etymologies===
A large number of origins have been proposed. Some of them are thought to fall into the category of [[False etymology|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 people|Ulster Scots]] (Scots-Irish) immigrants to North America, of the common Scots phrase ''och aye'' ("oh yes").<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Read |first1= Allen W |year= 1964 |title= The folklore of "O.K." |journal= American Speech |volume= 39 |issue= 1| pages= 5–25 |jstor=453922 |doi=10.2307/453922}}</ref>
* A borrowing of the [[Greek language|Greek]] phrase {{lang|el|όλα καλά}} ({{Transliteration|el|''óla kalá''}}), meaning "all good".{{sfn|Weber|1942}}