OK

OK (Template:IPAc-en), 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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"),<ref name=CK2021>Template:Citation</ref> 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.Template:Sfn 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?").<ref name="Yngve, Victor page 568">Yngve, Victor. "On getting a word in edgewise," page 568. Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting [of the] Chicago Linguistic Society, 1970.</ref><ref name=CK2021 /> Some of this variation in use and shape of the word is also found in other languages.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Etymologies

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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.<ref>Template:Cite AV media Template: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">Template:*Template:Cite book
Template:*Template:Cite journal</ref> in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964.<ref name=AHD/><ref name="read">*Template:Cite journal
*Template:Cite journal
*Template:Cite journal
*Template:Cite journal
*Template:Cite journal
*Template:Cite journal</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 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:

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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. OKTemplate:'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.<ref name="The Economist"/> 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 OKTemplate:'s history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States.

Read proposed an etymology of OK in "Old Kinderhook" in 1941.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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>Template:Cite web (good summary of the results of Read's six articles)</ref> Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations:

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Choctaw

In "All Mixed Up", the folk singer Pete Seeger sang that OK was of Choctaw origin,Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

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

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

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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>Template:Cite book</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">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">"SLAVERY" Template:Webarchive, Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Oklahoma Historical Society, Retrieved 29 December 2014</ref> Cherokee (an Iroquoian-family language).Template:Sfn Template:Sfn For the three decades prior to the Boston abbreviation fad, the Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the U.S. government,<ref>Template:Cite journal</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, 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 :

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

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.Template:Sfn 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.<ref name="Yngve, Victor page 568"/>Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

The West African hypothesis had not been accepted by 1981 by any etymologists,Template:Sfn<ref name="onlineetym">Template:Cite web</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">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 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").<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
A borrowing of the Greek phrase Template:Lang (Template:Transliteration), meaning "all good".Template:Sfn

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:

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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.".<ref>Jacksonian America: "OK, O.K. or Okay?" "History of Middle Tennessee" by A.W. Putnam, 1859, page 252</ref> The lawyer who successfully argued many Indian rights claims, Felix S. Cohen, supported the Jacksonian popularization of the term based on its Choctaw origin: Template:Blockquote

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.Template:Sfn However, Frederic Cassidy asserts that he personally tracked down this diary, writing: Template:Blockquote

Similarly, H. L. Mencken, who originally considered it "very clear that 'o. k.' is actually in the manuscript",Template:Sfn 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[andsome] before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind.Template:Sfn

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".<ref>Template:Cite news
Template:*Template:Cite news</ref> Cassidy asserts that this is a misreading of the source, which actually begins "Oh, ki, massa ...", where ki is a phrase by itself:

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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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Whilst most variants have descended from the root "OK", "okay" predominates in edited English as it permits easier modification (e.g. by pluralising).<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Variation	Description
okeh	An alternative spelling, no longer common,<ref name=okeh/> although it remained in sporadic use well into the 20th century.<ref>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.</ref>
hokay	Used as an alternative.Template:Citation needed
k or kk or oka	Commonly used in instant messaging, or in SMS messages. Before the days of SMS, "K" Template:Morse was used as a Morse code prosign for "Go Ahead".Template:Citation needed
Okie dokie	This slang term was popularized in the film "The Little Rascals" (Oki doki). Also with alternate spellings, including okeydoke.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Better source needed The phrase can be extended further, e.g. "Okie dokie (aka) pokie / smokie / artichokie / karaoke / lokie," etc.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Better source needed
A-OK	Variant attributed to Alan Shepard and the 1961 NASA launch of the Mercury mission.<ref name="time19620302">{{cite magazine url=https://time.com/archive/6872981/the-press-calm-voice-from-space/	title=Calm Voice from Space \|access-date=2024-06-04 \|date=1962-03-02 \|publisher=Time Inc.}}</ref><ref name=right-stuff-p227>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Dubious
M'kay	Slang term popularized by South Park TV show. Pronounced also as "Mmmm K". This variation has connotations of sarcasm, such as condescending disagreement.Template:Citation needed
Okily Dokily!	Catchphrase used by Ned Flanders in The Simpsons.
Oki or okii or okie	Humorous respellings of okay.

International usage

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Language	Form	Usage/history
Afrikaans	oukei	Used in colloquial Afrikaans.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Arabic	اوكي or اوك	Arabic speakers also use the word widely, particularly in areas of former British presence like Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. The prevalence of the term in the Arab world can be attributed to the prevalence of American cinema and television. It is pronounced just as it is in English but is very rarely seen in Arabic newspapers and formal media.Template:Citation needed
Catalan	okey	Template:Citation needed
Chinese language	OK	In Mainland China, the native term Template:Lang-zh (literally: "good") is more often used instead, saying "OK" is usually reserved for when communicating with foreigners. However, the term tends to be modified into "OK了" (OK le) to better fit Mandarin grammar. (The "了" indicates a change of state; in this case it indicates the achievement of consensus.) It is also somewhat humorously used in the "spelling" of the word for karaoke, "卡拉OK", pronounced "kah-lah-oh-kei" (Mandarin does not natively have a syllable with the pronunciation "kei"). On computers, OK is usually translated as Template:Lang-zh, which means "confirm" or "confirmed".Template:Citation needed In Taiwan, OK is frequently used in various sentences, popular among but not limited to younger generations. This includes the aforementioned "OK了" (Okay le), "OK嗎" (Okay ma), meaning "Is it okay?" or "OK啦" (Okay la), a strong, persuading affirmative (similar to English's "Alright, cool"), as well as the somewhat tongue-in-cheek yes/no construction "O不OK?" (O bù OK?), "Is it OK or not?", again adopting the term into Chinese grammar.Template:Citation needed
Czech	oukej	Pronounced as the English OK. When written OK, it is pronounced [o:ka:]. Neither version recognized as official.Template:Citation needed Registered since the 1940s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Danish	okay, OK [ɔʊ̯kʰɛɪ̯] [oːˀ kʰɔːˀ]Template:Efn	Appears from the 1930s. Pronunciation can be reduced and both vowels may become monophthongs. There is a difference in meaning between stress on first or last syllable.<ref>Template:Cite Q</ref>
Dutch	oké	oke, ok and okay are also used, but are less common in the formal written language.<ref>Template:In lang Taaladvies.net</ref>
Esperanto	o kej	The word is pronounced with stress on the second syllable.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Estonian	okei	Okei is the most common form, but others include okk, okoo, oki, okas, okeika and reduplicated versions.<ref name=keevallik>Template:Cite Q</ref>
Faroese	ókey [ɔuˈkɛɪ]	Possibly loaned in the 1940s as a result of the British occupation of the Faroe Islands or through Danish.<ref name=joansson>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp
Filipino	okay	Especially in the phrase okay lang 'it's okay'.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Finnish	'OK, okei [okeɪ], [oukeɪ], [ookoo]Template:Efn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	Used since the 1930s. Used as part of conversational transition and closing, to signal acceptance of a directive, and to respond to sharing of information.<ref>Template:Cite Q</ref>
French	oké	<ref>Template:Cite Q</ref>
German	O.K., o.k., okay [owkeɪ] [ɔˈkeː], [oˈkeː]<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	Used to mark understanding, agreement, closing and transition.<ref name=helmer>Template:Cite Q</ref>
Greek	OK, οκ [ocei] [ok]Template:Efn	<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Modern Hebrew	או קיי	Common as equivalent to the Hebrew word בסדר [b'seder] ('adequate', 'in order').Template:Citation needed
Hungarian	oké	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Icelandic	ókei	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Indonesia	ok, oke, or okey	Sometimes using with suffix "lah": oklah, okelah. in chatting on social media sometimes indonesians only type "oklh" to minimalize time to type.Template:Citation needed
Japanese	オーケー (Template:Lit), オッケー (Template:Lit)Template:Citation needed	Early records include a song from 1930 and a novel in 1951. The word has a high-low tone. Also used in a reduplicated form.<ref name=kuroshima>Template:Cite Q</ref>
Korean	오케이 /okʰei/	Occurs in newspapers, magazines and novels from the 1920s. The word is found in a 1937 loanword dictionary.<ref name=kuroshima/>
Latvian	okej	ok also used, but considered to be a part of more colloquial internet language.Template:Citation needed
Macedonian	okej	Template:Citation needed
Malay	OK	Frequently used with the emphatic suffix "lah": OK-lah.Template:Citation needed
Maldivian	Okay	Used in different ways, often used to agree with something, more often used while departing from a gathering "Okay Dahnee/Kendee."Template:Citation needed
Maltese	owkej	Pronounced as the English OK.Template:Citation needed
Norwegian	OK, ok [okeɪ] or [o ko]Template:Efn	Okei and oukei are also commonly used written or spoken.<ref>Template:In lang Ordbok.uib.no</ref>
Polish	okej	The most frequent form is okej, but others are oki, oka, okidok, okejka and okejos.<ref name=keevallik/>
Portuguese	OK, oquei	<ref>Template:Cite Q</ref>
Russian	окей [ɐˈkʲeɪ̯], ок [ok]	There are many variations such as оке, оки and океюшки.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Also used for conversation closure.<ref name=intro>Template:Cite Q</ref>Template:Rp
Serbo-Croatian	okej	Template:Citation needed
Singlish	OK	OK is often used with suffixes used such as OK lor, OK lah, OK meh, OK leh, which are used in different occasions.Template:Citation needed
Slovak	oukej, okej, OK [oʊkeɪ] [o:ka:]Template:Efn	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Slovene	okej, okay	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Spanish	okey	Used in Spain in the 1980s. Also part of the phrase Template:Wikt-lang.<ref name="Fernández">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Better source needed
Swedish	okej	<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Thai	โอเค	Pronounced "o khe".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Turkish	okey	Has a secondary meaning referring to the game Okey, from a company that used the word as its name in the 1960s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Urdu	OK	Template:Citation needed
Vietnamese	ô-kê	Used in Vietnam; okey also used, but ok more commonly.<ref>Luong, Ngoc. Personal interview by Nu Alpha Pi. 13 April 2010.</ref>Template:Better source needed

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Gesture

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Closeup of fingers with the thumb and index finger forming a circle and the other fingers extended.

Okay sign

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.<ref name=FGuide>Armstrong, Nancy & Melissa Wagner. (2003) Field Guide to Gestures: How to Identify and Interpret Virtually Every Gesture Known to Man. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.</ref> 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.<ref name=FGuide/> Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures, some offensive, others devotional.<ref name="aol">Dangerous Body Language Abroad Template:Webarchive, by Matthew Link. Posted 26 July 2010 01:00 PM. Retrieved on 17 November 2012</ref><ref>Body Language. Obscene, to be used with extreme moderation! Retrieved on 17 November 2012</ref>

Computers

File:Notepad Font selection.png

Example of OK and Cancel buttons in Windows Notepad

A blue screen with white text: "MSX BASIC version 3.0 / Copyright 1988 by Microsoft / 23414 Bytes free / Disk BASIC version 1.0 / Ok" and a square representing the cursor. On the bottom line, "color auto goto list run".

The command prompt for user input in MSX BASIC was Template:Samp

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref> Template:Cite conference</ref>

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 [ OK ].