The most spoken word in the world is 'OK'; did you know it started as a joke?

OK is one of the most recognized words in the world and its story is even more interesting. The surprising thing is that it was born out of a joke and then slowly it made its place on the tongues of people all over the world.

Have you ever wondered that when you are on a trip to an unknown country and you don't know anything in the local language except 'please' and 'thank you', then what would be the word that most people would understand? Obviously, your answer would also be 'OK'! Actually, this small word is one of the most recognized words in the world and surprisingly, it started as a joke.

Where did OK come from?

To understand the origin of the word OK, we have to go back to the year 1839, when a strange trend used to run in American newspapers - deliberate misspellings and use of funny abbreviations. Just like today people write "brb" (be right back) or "lol" in chat.

At about the same time, the Boston Morning Post wrote in a light-hearted satire:

“…et ceteras, ok—all correct—and cause the corks to fly…”

Here "ok" meant "oll korrect", which was a deliberate misspelling of "all correct".

Abbreviations and misspellings

This type of language style was popular in American newspapers in the 19th century. In humorous articles, 'all correct' was written as 'oll korrect' and this gave rise to 'ok'. There was no shortage of space in the newspapers of that time, yet the use of abbreviations had become a fashion.

Other examples include "no go" being "know go", and "no use" being "know yuse". Similarly, "all right" was pronounced "oll wright" or "OW" and "all correct" was pronounced "OK".

How did OK become famous all over the world?

Let us tell you, the word OK would have probably been forgotten if the US presidential election of 1840 had not taken place. Yes, this is because in this election, candidate Martin Van Buren got a nickname because of his hometown Kinderhook: Old Kinderhook.

His supporters named their club OK Club, and the slogan became: We're OK! From here the word OK also gained political popularity and people started believing that it means Old Kinderhook.

The debate did not stop here

Several language theories later emerged about the meaning and origin of OK. Some people linked it to the Choctaw tribe's word okeh. Even US President Woodrow Wilson agreed with this idea, and he used to write "okeh" instead of OK on documents. However, linguists later proved that OK is actually an abbreviation of 'oll korrect', and its roots are related to humorous articles in newspapers.

OK or Okay: What's the difference?

Today we see OK in many forms - OK, okay, ok and all three are valid and popular. Although "okay" looks more formal, it is not more 'correct' in terms of grammar or history.

Writers like Louisa May Alcott also used the word okay in her famous novel Little Women, but in the early versions this word was replaced by 'cozy'. That is, this word also evolved over time.

PC:Jagran