The weird origin of "O.K."

Languages are messy. We want them to be logical, but more often than not they are anything but. A technical term can become an insult, a derogatory word can become acceptable and local jokes can turn into a global phenomenon. That is precisely what happened to the expression "O.K.".

Its origin can be found in a silly fad that was popular amongst Boston intellectuals in the 19th century. It may sound weird now, but back then it was all the rage. For some inexplicable reason, a group of fun-loving speakers came up with the idea of using initials based on deliberate misspellings of common phrases. Thus, "K. C." stood for Knuff Ced, which was a fanciful spelling of "(e)nough said". Similarly, "K. Y." was supposed to represent Know Yuse, which sounds like "no use" and the letters "O. W." became shorthand for Ole Wright, which, again, was an intentional misspelling of "all right". That is the context in which the expression "O. K." originated. If you want to know what it stood for, you're going to have to watch the video below:

So, the expression "O.K." is, basically, the result of a joke that got out of hand. What does that tell us? A very important lesson: languages are messy. Sometimes they don't make any sense (you can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but never whelmed). They are often asymmetrical (uncouth exists, but couth doesn't). They can be shockingly inconsistent (flammable means the exact same thing as inflammable) and meanings change dramatically (in the 13th century the word nice meant stupid). In the 1930s people who wanted to listen to a radio broadcast would turn on the wireless. These days wireless makes you think of a different device, right? And, of course, we are now in the process of enduring a painful irony. The adverb literally is now used figuratively even though its entire job was once to precisely prevent figurative interpretation. Let that sink in.

Over the years I've collected more than eleven different explanations of the origin of  "O.K.". They range from the hypothesis that okay comes from the Choctaw language (in which okeh means "very good"), to a misspelling of on quay, to the initials of Old Knickerbocker (the name of a New York club) or the initials of Otto Krause, a Ford employee who, legend has it, was in charge of signing off on roadworthy cars... and so on and so forth.

It is only human to try and establish order in what is seemingly utter chaos. That search for some form of logic through folk etymologies actually explains a part of the metalinguistic function, namely, the ability to classify reality. But let's also accept that our desire to see order where there is none should not interfere with our ability to embrace reality.