OMG, it's 1839
Most of us have used LOL or OMG by now. Long before that, young people were already shortening phrases, misspelling them on purpose, and turning the results into slang. Almost all of those jokes have vanished, except one. Somehow it escaped print and traveled the globe, becoming one of the most recognizable words in many languages.
Today’s Trivia Question
Which story best matches the documented origin of “OK”?
Bonus points if you can name just when and where it first appeared.
| A Few More for Fun… |
OK was never an only child. That same era of abbreviation madness created a slew of linguistic siblings, but few survived long enough for us to remember two centuries later.
What other abbreviation from the same era meant “all right”?
What invention helped OK remain alive and well, and even spread because its two letters were useful confirmation of a clearly received message?
| A Few More Trivia Questions Before You Go… |
Those two little letters proved remarkably good at long-distance travel. OK appeared in literature, telegraph messages, across the Wild West, in the space race, and in places English wasn’t ever spoken!
After astronaut Alan Shepard’s 1961 Freedom 7 flight, the press began associating the phrase “A-OK” with him. Who was it who actually used the phrase publicly while reporting the mission?
OK was in the space race, but it appeared on the ground in another famous spot long before the first rockets launched.
The gunfight that made the O.K. Corral famous lasted about how long?
OK had traveled quite a way from the East Coast!
Not too bad for two little letters. “Shorthand” is another way people describe the evolution of a phrase like “oll korrect” into OK, and its ability to tell someone everything is alright. Movies also adopted their own shorthand, known as “ratings,” and they rely on two letters to indicate the age group a film is “OK” for.
In 1984, what movie became the first released under the brand new rating: PG-13?
Some like to know more about the background of an abbreviation like “PG” (parental guidance) or “OK” before they use it. It makes perfect sense to know what you’re saying, but some have refused to use OK for unusual reasons.
An early edition of the famous book Little Women included one of the earliest literary appearances of the spelling out of “okay.” What happened in the later 1880 edition of the book?
Answers
Today’s question Answer: C. A Boston newspaper abbreviated the joke spelling “oll korrect.” It was the late 1830s, and deliberately bad spelling and silly abbreviations were all the rage among young, educated Americans. “All correct” became “oll korrect,” and then OK. It was, basically, today's ROFL! Bonus points if you knew it was in March of 1839 that the Boston Morning Post first slipped an “o.k.” into a satirical story about a rival newspaper. | |
| 01 | Answer: B. O.W. for “oll wright.” The period also birthed “K.G.” for “know go”. Thankfully, most of these verbal experiments disappeared. OK had better marketing, though, and just when the trend should have faded, a newer technology arrived that really supported shorter messages. |
| 02 | Answer: B. The telegraph. As networks expanded in the 1800s, short messages were preferred, and OK became a wildly useful way to indicate that a transmission had been received. In other words, a newspaper’s little joke found a full-time job! |
| 03 | Answer: C. NASA spokesperson John “Shorty” Powers. NASA explained that Shepard himself did not say “A-OK” on the flight tapes of the mission. Powers, the public affairs officer also known as the voice of Mercury Control, used that phrase when describing Shepard’s condition. Interestingly enough, NASA records confirm that the team of communications engineers had already been using “A-OK” long before Shepard even launched! |
| 04 | Answer: D. About 30 seconds. On October 26, 1881, the Earps and Doc Holliday faced members of the Clanton-McLaury group in Tombstone, AZ. More than 30 shots were fired, three men died, and one of the most famous gunfights in American Western history ended in under a minute. Hollywood has really been stretching those 30 seconds ever since! |
| 05 | Answer: B. Jamaica. Within roughly eight years of its appearance in a Boston newspaper, OK had hopped across the ocean and traveled linguistic boundaries. Later, it would show up in India, Greece, England, and much farther. |
| 06 | Answer: C. Red Dawn. The Flamingo Kid was actually the first movie to receive the rating, but its release was delayed. So, Red Dawn reached theaters first. |
| 07 | Answer: C. It was replaced with the word “cozy.” Author Louisa May Alcott was an early adopter of the spelled-out variant of “okay”. In the 1868-69 edition, the character Amy talks about marrying well and making “everything okay all around.” But when the 1880 edition appeared, okay had disappeared and was replaced with “cozy”. |
How did you do? Score 1 point for each correct answer and 1 point for each bonus you knew. Perfect score: 10.
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