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word origins

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Why do we say 'OK'? It started as an inside joke but blew up when it hit the mainstream.

How a cheesy joke from the 1830s became the most widely spoken word in the world.

A happy woman gives a huge OK sign.

You may be surprised to learn that the universally recognized term for neutral affirmation, "OK," has humble linguistic roots. It all started as a cheesy inside joke amongst Boston hipsters. Back in the 1830s, it was cool among Boston’s intellectual class to intentionally misspell abbreviations. They coined "KC" for "’knuff ced," "OW" for "oll wright," "KY" for "know yuse," and “OK” for "oll korrect."

The abbreviations are similar to Cockney rhyming slang, a form of wordplay where phrases are substituted with rhyming words. For example, a phone is known as the “dog and bone” and stairs are called, “apple and pears.”

"OK" found a mainstream audience after it was first used in an article published in the Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839. Soon after, the tongue-in-cheek joke spread to newspapers across the country.

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