Probably you know that languages evolve,
and words and patterns of speech and even pronunciations change over time,
sometimes rapidly….
Sometime when you’re in a full body
cast you can read up on
The Great Vowel Shift in the English language in
England (roughly 1350-1600).
Today’s lesson is a bit less
formidable: raise your hand if you know when “O.K.” became part of American
English.
Okay, here’s the answer:
In the 1830s, some young folks with a
bit of education thought it was groovy to misspell words and then use the
resulting abbreviations as slang (guess who probably didn’t quite know what the
kids were talking about….). Such as “OW” meaning “all right” (the misspelled
form was “oll wright”) and “KG” for “No go” (“Know go”). Cool, right? Know, really.
So, “O.K.” showed up….that is, “oll korrect”
derived from “all correct.” Wicked.
It first appeared in print—as part of a
joke—on March 23, 1839, in
The Boston Morning Post. You gotta believe that
early 19
th century journalists had the same awesome sense of humor
that pervades the news media today.
So, like, our constantly changing language,
GP, y’know?
(“go phigure.” You knew that, right?
Cool.)
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016
All rights reserved.
