Okay - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"Okay" is a colloquial English word denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment. "Okay" has frequently turned up as a loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

in many other languages. As an adjective

Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....

, "okay" means "adequate," "acceptable" ("this is okay to send out"), "mediocre" often in contrast to "good" ("the food was okay"); it also functions as an adverb

Adverb

An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....

in this sense. As an interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

, it can denote compliance ("Okay, I will do that"), or agreement ("Okay, that's good"). As a verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

and noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

it means "assent" ("The boss okayed the purchase," and, "The boss gave his okay to the purchase.") It can also be used with appropriate voice tone—such as sarcasm

Sarcasm

Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.” Though irony and understatement is usually the immediate context, most authorities distinguish sarcasm from irony; however, others argue that sarcasm may or often does involve irony or employs...

or a questioning tone

Question

A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information may be provided with an answer....

—to show doubt or to seek confirmation, assent and approval ("Okaay..?" or "Is that okay?").

There is no consensus on the origins of "okay".

Earliest documented examples

The earliest recorded claimed usage of okay is a 1790 court record from Sumner County

Sumner County, Tennessee

Sumner County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 130,449. Its county seat is Gallatin, but its largest town is Hendersonville...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, discovered in 1859 by a Tennessee

Tennessee

historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam, in which Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

apparently said:
What is widely regarded as the earliest known example of the modern "ok" being set down on paper is a quintessential "we arrived ok" notation in the hand-written diary of William Richardson going from Boston to New Orleans in 1815, about a month after the Battle of New Orleans. One entry says "we traveled on to N. York where we arrived all well, at 7 P.M." By most reckonings a later similar entry uses "ok" in place of "all well": "Arrived at Princeton, a handsome little village, 15 miles from N Brunswick, ok & at Trenton, where we dined at 1 P.M."

The original "ok &" was edited to read "o.k. and" in the print publication and that rendering was widely accepted at the time. H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

considered it "very clear that 'o. k.' is actually in the manuscript." The editor of American Speech noted that this use of "o.k." was "likely to become a locus classicus of the expression." H.L. Mencken later recanted his endorsement of the expression in favor of one espoused by those who say that "O.K." was used no earlier than 1839. Mencken described the diary entry as a misreading of the author's self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h[andsome] before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind.

Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read was an American etymologist and lexicographer, best known for his studies into the words "okay" and "fuck."...

identified the earliest known use of O.K. in print as 1839, in the March 23 edition of the Boston Morning Post

Boston Post

The Boston Post was the most popular daily newspaper in New England for over a hundred years before it folded in 1956. The Post was founded in November 1831 by two prominent Boston businessmen, Charles G...

(an American newspaper). The announcement of a trip by the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society (a "frolicsome group" according to Read) received attention from the Boston papers. Charles Gordon Greene wrote about the event using the line that is widely regarded as the first instance of this strain of okay, complete with gloss:
This apparently resulted from a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s. The abbreviation in this case is from the misspelled "oll korrect."

Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print. Seven instances were accompanied ("glossed") with variations on "all correct" such as "oll korrect" or "ole kurreck", but five appeared with no accompanying explanation, suggesting that the word was expected to be well known to readers and possibly in common colloquial use at the time.

A year later, supporters of the American Democratic political party claimed during the 1840 United States presidential election

United States presidential election, 1840

The United States presidential election of 1840 saw President Martin Van Buren fight for re-election against an economic depression and a Whig Party unified for the first time behind war hero William Henry Harrison and his "log cabin campaign"...

that it stood for "Old Kinderhook," a nickname for a Democratic presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....

, a native of Kinderhook, NY

Kinderhook (town), New York

Kinderhook is a town in the northern part of Columbia County, New York, United States. The population was 8,296 at the 2000 census. The name of the town means "Children's Corner" in the language of the original Dutch settlers . The town of Kinderhook contains two villages, one of which is also...

. "'Vote for OK' was snappier than using his Dutch name." In response, Whig

Whig Party (United States)

The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...

opponents attributed OK, in the sense of "Oll Korrect," to Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

's bad spelling. The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been a critical event in okays history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States.

James Pyle, inventor of "Pyle's Pearline" purchased by Procter & Gamble in 1914 and renamed "Ivory Snow," placed an ad in the New York Times, October 23, 1862 which refers to James Pyle's O.K. Soap. The New York Times obituary of James Pyle dated January 21, 1900 says "Brought O.K. Into Popularity." The obituary states "He was the first to utilize in advertisements the letters OK in their business significance of all correct. He had the original use of these letters by Stonewall Jackson as an endorsement and was struck by their catchiness. By his extensive employment of them he probably did more than any other person to raise them to the dignity of a popular term and an established business institution."

However, and importantly for one candidate etymology, earlier documented examples exist of African slaves in America using phonetically identical or strikingly similar words in a similar sense to okay. (See Wolof: waw-kay, below.)

Etymology

Various etymologies have been proposed for okay, but none has been unanimously agreed upon. Most are generally regarded to be unlikely or anachronistic.

There are four proposed etymologies which have received material academic support since the 1960s. They are:

Initials of Oll Korrect, a "facetious alteration" of all correct.
Initials of "Old Kinderhook" a nickname for President Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....

which was a reference to Van Buren's birthplace Kinderhook, NY.
Choctaw
Choctaw
The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...

word okeh or hoke
Wolof
Wolof language
Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...

and Bantu
Bantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...

word waw-kay or the Mande
Mande languages
The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé people and include Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mende, Susu, Yacouba, Vai, and Ligbi...

(aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke

Oll Korrect has been extensively discussed by Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read was an American etymologist and lexicographer, best known for his studies into the words "okay" and "fuck."...

, although the primary purpose of those discussions was to promote "Old Kinderhook"; the two differ materially from other candidates in that they:

Have widespread verifiable pre-existing documented usage,
Have verifiable geographic overlaps with okays first documented instances,
Have equivalent meanings,
Do not fit over-neatly into contemporaneous or subsequent political or cultural circumstances, and
Are remarkably similar in pronunciation to okay (having due regard to the danger of false coincidence
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this," is a logical fallacy that states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one." It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is also sometimes referred to as false cause,...

, which is endemic to colloquial etymology)

One theory of derivation is that it was a corruption from the speech of the large number of descendants of Scottish and Ulster Scots (Scots-Irish) immigrants to North America, of the common Scots phrase "och aye" ("oh yes"). Another postulation, that it derives from the Lakota

Lakota language

Lakota is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. While generally taught and considered by speakers as a separate language, Lakota is mutually understandable with the other two languages , and is considered by most linguists one of the three major varieties of the Sioux...

word "Hokaheh" (also anglicised as "Hoka Hey" and "Hoka Hay") which has many popular mistranslations but which is probably most accurately rendered as "Let's go!", is very unlikely, as contact with the Lakota people was not really established at the time that "okay" or "ok" was first noted. A third suggestion is the loan of the Greek phrase Όλα Καλά or Ola Kala, meaning "All Good".

Oll Korrect

This etymology, based on Read's extensive discussion, became widely known following his publications in 1963–1964.

Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read

Allen Walker Read was an American etymologist and lexicographer, best known for his studies into the words "okay" and "fuck."...

, revisiting and refuting his own work of 20 years earlier, contributed a major survey of the early history of okay in a series of six articles in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964. He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding okay and the history of its folk etymologies, both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself.

A key observation is that, at the time of its first appearance in print, a broader fad

FAD

In biochemistry, flavin adenine dinucleotide is a redox cofactor involved in several important reactions in metabolism. FAD can exist in two different redox states, which it converts between by accepting or donating electrons. The molecule consists of a riboflavin moiety bound to the phosphate...

existed in the United States of "comical misspellings" and of forming and employing acronyms and initialisms. These were apparently based on direct phonetic representation of (some) people's colloquial speech patterns. Examples at the time included K.Y. for "know yuse" ("no use") and N.C. for "'nuff ced." ("enough said", commonly written today as "nuff said") This fad falls within the historical context, before universal "free" public education in America, where the poorly educated lower-classes of society were often easy entertainment for those who found fun in their non-universal language, epitomized by colloquial words and home-taught or self-deduced phonetic spellings. Motivated by this context, Noah Webster's dictionaries were published in 1806, 1828 and 1840, which both nationalized language usage and highlighted non-universal language by its introduction of unique American spellings, such as program rather than programme.
The general fad may have existed in spoken or informal written U.S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. OKs original presentation as "all correct" was later varied with spellings such as "Oll Korrect" or even "Ole Kurreck." Deliberate word play was associated with the acronym fad and was a yet broader contemporary American fad.

The chief strength of this etymology is its clear written record. A problem with this etymology is the implication that common usage was driven by the written appearance of a geographically and socially isolated slang term that was alien to the rest of the country. While appearing in written form often spreads and expands the usage of colloquial terms, it is rare for a single instance of written speech to make a term colloquial. The relatively slow take-up of the term by other English-speaking countries illustrates this pattern.

Old Kinderhook

Read's series of papers offered an interesting and memorable discussion of "Oll Korrect," but the purpose of those papers was to support his New York City based "Old Kinderhook" etymology referring to Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....

's residence in Kinderhook, New York. Read had formulated that etymology about twenty years earlier, but it had come under fire.

Van Buren was not by any means known as "Old Kinderhook" in general usage, and Read offered only two instances of the use of "O.K." that mentioned "Old Kinderhook." One was an 1840 ad for a breast pin celebrating Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans

Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815 and was the final major battle of the War of 1812. American forces, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, defeated an invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the...

. The other was a facetious use as part of a gag to take a swipe at the Whigs; indeed, to take the use of the abbreviations in that gag seriously is to miss the whole point. Many linguists, including the editors of The Dictionary of American English and the Oxford English Dictionary found these uses no more significant than any of other uses of "O.K." over the previous year and a half. They considered its use in the lapel pin ad an "afterthought" dropped into an ad that was essentially a celebration of Jackson and the frontier associations of the expression.

Read countered, however, that the ad made it evident "that the expression was strange and new at that time," that the earlier uses of "O.K." in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence, New Orleans, New York, etc. – including the humorous uses of "Oll Korrect" – were "not the real thing, but anticipative of the real thing." He said that, regardless of the surface meaning of those earlier uses, their true, although secret and cabalist reference, was to Van Buren's residence, and that "Old Kinderhook" established the trajectory of "O.K." as it "rocketed across the American linguistic sky."

Read's etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is offered without reservation in most dictionaries. Modern dictionaries almost invariably offer an etymology that credits the historical use of "Oll Korrect", and some also discuss the apparent wider popularization of "O.K." as a product of the nearly contemporaneous "Old Kinderhook" usage.

Choctaw: okeh

Another proposed induction of okay involves English-speaking Americans taking up a locally heard American Indian

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

word.

The Choctaw expression "okeh" is still occasionally used, sometimes in rather unexpected contexts. The song "All Mixed Up" written by Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

and recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...

in 1964 includes the verse

You know this language that we speak,
is part German, Latin and part Greek
Celtic and Arabic all in a heap,
well amended by the people in the street.
Choctaw gave us the word "okay"…

The Choctaw etymology is not generally accepted today. For example, The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang has four separate entries for "O.K." and says that "okeh" is the obsolete equivalent of each of them. It also says that "okeh" ('it is indeed') is a Choctaw expression. But it nevertheless says that "[w]ithout concrete evidence of a prior and established English borrowing from Choctaw-Chickasaw" any "derivational claims" about a Choctaw etymology are as "gratuitous" as those of the Liberian Djabo "O-ke," the Mandingo "O ke," or the Ulster Scots "Ough, aye!"

African origins

It has been suggested that "okay" derives from an African language, popularized through usage of African slaves in America. Documented instances exist well before 1839 of slaves being quoted phonetically using words strikingly similar to the now common usage and meaning of okay. For example, in 1784:
And a Jamaican planter's diary of 1816 records a negro as saying:
Possible origins that have been suggested are the Wolof

Wolof language

Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...

and Bantu

Bantu languages

The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages...

word waw-kay or the Mande

Mande languages

The Mande languages are spoken in several countries in West Africa by the Mandé people and include Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Bissa, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mende, Susu, Yacouba, Vai, and Ligbi...

(aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke. However, there is apparently no concrete evidence linking the American usages with any particular African language, and the etymology is not generally accepted today.

Spelling variations

Whether this word is printed as OK, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 16 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing...

and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: The Official Style Guide Used by the Writers and Editors of the World's Most Authoritative Newspaper is a style guide created in 1950 by editors at the newspaper and revised in 1974 and 1999 by Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly. The revised and...

provide no consensus.

Variation	Where used/Origins
oki or oky	A quick way of saying okay
okeh	An alternative English spelling, no longer common. Also see Okeh Records Okeh Records Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:... .
kay or 'kay	Notably used in Herman Wouk Herman Wouk Herman Wouk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.-Biography:... 's The Caine Mutiny The Caine Mutiny The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships... as a filler word by the maniacal Captain Queeg.
k or kk	Commonly used in instant messaging Instant messaging Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet... , or in SMS SMS SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :... messages. Before the days of SMS, K was used as a Morse code prosign Prosigns for Morse Code In Morse code, prosigns or procedural signals are dot/dash sequences that have a special meaning in a transmission: they are a form of control character... for "okay".
'mkay, m'kay, mkay, or mk	In use long before, but popularized by Mr. Van Driessen in Beavis and Butt-head Beavis and Butt-Head Beavis and Butt-head is an American animated television series created by Mike Judge. The series originated from Frog Baseball, a 1992 short film by Judge. After seeing the short, MTV signed Judge to develop the concept. Beavis and Butt-head originally aired from March 8, 1993 to November 28, 1997... and Mr. Mackey in South Park South Park South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics... .
Okey kokkey	Used frequently by Giovanni Capello from Mind Your Language Mind Your Language Mind Your Language is a British comedy television series, that premiered on ITV in late 1977. Produced by LWT and directed by Stuart Allen, it is set in an adult education college in London and focuses on the English as a Foreign Language class taught by Mr. Jeremy Brown, portrayed by Barry Evans,... .
Okie dokie	Popularly known at least by the 1930s in "The Little Rascals" (Oki doki). The phrase can be extended further, e.g. "Okie dokie (ala) pokie / smokie / artichokie / karaoke," etc.
okej	Used in Poland Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... , although ok is more common in written language; sometimes oki is said.
ôkê	Used in Vietnam Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam... ; okey also used, but ok more commonly.
okei	Sometimes used in Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... , Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the... and Latvian Latvian language Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language... . Quite common in Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities... and Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a... .
Okai	Used in the Norwegian language.
okej	Used in Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... , Slovene Slovenian language Slovene or Slovenian is a South Slavic language spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. It is the first language of about 1.85 million people and is one of the 23 official and working languages of the European Union... , Serbian Serbian language Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries.... , Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries... , Macedonian Macedonian language Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora... and sometimes Latvian; ok also used, but less common.
oké	Used in Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe.... . OK, O.K., ok (especially in SMS), o.k., okés, okézsoké are also commonly used; oxi and oksa was in sporadic use in the 1980s, now rare.
oké	Used in Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... . okee, ok and okay are also used, but are less common in the formal written language.
okey	Especially in Latin American Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... and Turkish. Not uncommon in Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... .
occhei	Humorous phonetic translation in Italy.^{(Why is it humorous?)]}
okaj	Sometimes used in the Danish language Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
ochei	Alternative spelling in Italy, used without any humorous intent at all by Leo Ortolani in his comic "Rat-Man" published by Marvel Italia.^{(and why would it be considered humorous?)]}
ookoo	Used in Finland Finland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside... . Pronounced the same way as "OK", but spelled like the pronunciation of the letters.
oukej	Used in Czech and Slovak. Pronounced as the English OK. When written OK, it is pronounced [o:ka:]. Neither version recognized as official.
oquei	Phonetic translation to Latin American Spanish.
okey or ok	Used in Romanian Romanian language Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova... . Also used is ochei which is a humorous way of reading the word phonetically.^{^{(and why is it humorous?)]}}
óla kalá (όλα καλά) or O.K	Used in Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... . The abbreviation is pronounced as the English OK.
okely dokely or okely dokely do	Variation of OK used by the character Ned Flanders Ned Flanders Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally... in the television show "The Simpsons"
ob kb	Used by Bill Cosby Bill Cosby William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the... in his stand up titled "Bill Cosby Himself", in which he describes receiving novocain while at the dentist and is unable to speak properly.

Usage

Okay can mean "all right" or "satisfactory." For example, "I hope the children are okay" means "I hope the children are all right"; "I think I did OK in the exam" means "I think I did well, but not perfect, on the exam"; and "he is okay" means "he is good," or "he is well," depending on context.

Okay meaning "all right" can be used as the stand-alone question Okay? asking if there are any problems or confusion. This question can also be used as an informal greeting, as in "Okay, Jack?" equivalent to "How are you, Jack?"

Depending on context and inflection, okay can also imply mediocrity. For example: "The concert was just okay."

Okay can be used as an adjective or adverb: "He ran an OK race", "He did OK."

Okay can be used as an affirmative answer to a question or to express agreement with a statement, similar in both cases to "Yes."

Okay is sometimes used merely to acknowledge a question without giving an affirmation. For example: "You're going to give back the money that you stole, right?" "Okay."

Saying okay in a sarcastic or questioning tone or elongating the word can indicate that the person one is talking to is considered crazy and/or exasperatingly stubborn in their view. "I really saw a UFO last night!" "Okay..."

Okay! can also be used as an exclamation in place of words like "enough!" or "stop!"

Okay can be a noun or verb meaning approval. "Did you get the supervisor's okay?" "The boss okayed the proposal."

Okay has multiple uses in public speaking. As an interjection at the opening of a speech, lecture, or reading, okay is used to call for the audience's attention and to signal that the speaker is about to begin. Similarly, it can be used as a section break in the middle of speech to mark a shift in topic. Finally, okay can be used at the end of a speech, lecture, or explanation to request listener feedback, similar to "Are you with me?" or "Do you understand?" Based on context and convention, this usage can be seen as asking for various responses ranging from simple, silent headshaking or nodding to full, detailed questions or rebuttals.

When used in phone texting or short message system (SMS), "Okay" is occasionally truncated to a single "k".

International usage

In Brazil and Mexico, as well as in other Latin American countries, the word is pronounced just as it is in English and is used very frequently. Although pronouncing it the same, Spanish speakers often spell the word "okey" to conform with the pronunciation rules of the language. In Brazil, it may be also pronounced as "ô-kei". In Portugal, it is used with its Portuguese pronunciation and sounds something like "ókâi" (similar to the English pronunciation but with the "ó" sounding like the "o" in "lost" or "top").

Arabic speakers also use the word (أوكي) widely, particularly in areas of former British occupation like Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, and Palestine but also all over the Arab world due to the prevalence of American cinema and television. It is pronounced just as it is in English but is very rarely seen in Arabic newspapers and formal media.

In Israel, the word okay is common as an equivalent to the Hebrew words בסדר [b'seder] ('in order') and טוב [tov] ('good'). It is written as it sounds in English אוקיי.

It is used in Japan and Korea in a somewhat restricted sense, fairly equivalent to "all right." Okay is often used in colloquial Japanese as a replacement for 大丈夫 (daijōbu "all right")　or いい (ii "good") and often followed by です (desu — the copula).

In Chinese, the term "好" (hǎo; literally: "good"), can be modified to fit most of usages of okay. For example, "好了" (hao le) closely resembles the interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

usage of okay. The "了" indicates a change of state, in this case it indicates the achievement of consensus. Likewise, "OK" is commonly transformed into "OK了" (OK le) when communicating with foreigners or with fellow Cantonese speaking people in at least Hong Kong and possibly to an extent, other regions of China. Other usages of Okay such as "I am okay" can be translated as "我还好." In Hong Kong, movies or dramas set in modern times use the term "ok" as part of the sprinkling of English included in otherwise Cantonese dialog. In Mandarin, it is also, somewhat humorously, used in the "spelling" of the word for karaoke, "卡拉OK," pronounced "kah-lah-oh-kei" (Mandarin does not natively have a syllable with the pronunciation "kei"). On the computer, okay is usually translated as "确定," which means "confirm" or "confirmed."

In Taiwan, OK is frequently used in various sentences, popular among but not limited to younger generations. This includes the aforementioned "OK了" (Okay le), "OK嗎" (Okay ma), meaning "Is it okay?" or "OK啦" (Okay la), a strong, persuading affirmative, as well as the somewhat tongue-in-cheek explicit yes/no construction "O不OK?" (O bu Okay), "Is it okay or not?."

In France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, OK is used to communicate agreement, and is generally followed by a French phrase (e.g. OK, d'accord).

In the Philippines "okay lang" is a common expression, literally meaning "just okay" or "just fine." They also use it in sms but with the letter "k" only which means okay also. Sometimes spelled as okey.

In Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

, it is frequently used with the emphatic suffix "lah": OK-lah.

In Vietnamese

Vietnamese language

Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

, it is spelled "Ô kê"

In India it is often used after a sentence to mean "did you get it?", often not regarded politely, for example, "I want this job done, okay?" or at the end of a conversation (mostly on the phone) followed by "bye" as in, "Okay, bye."

In Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, OK is spelled and pronounced as in English. The meaning ranges from acknowledgement to describing something neither good nor bad, same as in US/UK usage.

In Maldivian Okay is used in different ways, often used to agree with something, more often used while departing from a gathering "Okay Dahnee/Kendee".

Gesture

In the United States and much of Europe a related gesture

Gesture

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...

is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers. It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first. The gesture was popularized in America in 1836 as a symbol to support then Presidental canidate Martin Van Buren. This was because Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, derived from his hometown of Kinderhook, NY, had the initials O K. Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures.

Computers

OK is used to label buttons

Button (computing)

In computing, a button is a user interface element that provides the user a simple way to trigger an event, like searching for a query at a search engine, or to interact with dialog boxes, like confirming an action.-Description:A typical button is a rectangle or rounded rectangle, wider than it is...

in modal dialog boxes such as error messages or print dialogs, indicating that the user must press the button to accept the contents of the dialog box and continue. It is often placed next to a Cancel button which allows the user to dismiss the dialog box without accepting its contents. When a modal dialog box contains only one button, it is almost always labeled "OK" by convention and default

Default (computer science)

A default, in computer science, refers to a setting or value automatically assigned to a software application, computer program or device, outside of user intervention. Such settings are also called presets, especially for electronic devices...

. In this usage, it is usually rendered to the screen in upper case without punctuation: OK, rather than O.K., Okay, or Ok. The OK button can probably be traced to user interface research done for the Apple Lisa

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....

. However, modern user interface guidelines prefer to avoid modal dialog boxes if possible, and use more specific verbs, such as Continue, to label their action buttons instead of the generic OK.

PLATO normally responded to user input with ok or no.

PRIMOS

PRIMOS

PRIMOS was an operating system developed during the 1970s by Prime Computer for its minicomputer systems. It rapidly gained popularity and by the mid-1980s was a serious contender as a mainline minicomputer operating system...

, the operating system that ran on Prime

Prime Computer

Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...

computers, had a command interpreter which would print OK to indicate a command could be entered.

On the Radio Shack

Radio shack

Radio shack is a slang term for a room or structure for housing radio equipment.-History:In the early days of radio, equipment was experimental and home-built. The first radio transmitters used a noisy spark to generate radio waves and were often housed in a garage or shed. When radio was first...

TRS-80 Color Computer

The Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer was a home computer launched in 1980. It was one of the earliest of the first generation of computers marketed for home use in English-speaking markets...

(1980), there was an OK> prompt, which indicated that the Color Computer was ready to accept commands.

Many IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...

computers from the 1980s onwards performed a memory

Ram

-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...

check during start-up

Power-on self-test

Power-On Self-Test refers to routines run immediately after power is applied, by nearly all electronic devices. Perhaps the most widely-known usage pertains to computing devices...

. A counter showed the verified memory during the operation, sometimes suffixed with OK.

Some programming language interpreters such as BASIC

BASIC

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....

and Forth print ok when ready to accept input from the keyboard. This ok prompt is used on Sun

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

, Apple, and other computers with the Forth-based Open Firmware (OpenBoot)

Open Firmware

Open Firmware, or OpenBoot in Sun Microsystems parlance, is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers . It originated at Sun, and has been used by Sun, Apple, IBM, and most other non-x86 PCI chipset...

. The appearance of ok in inappropriate contexts on these systems is the subject of some humor.

In HTTP, the HyperText Transfer Protocol, upon which the World Wide Web is based, a successful response from the server is defined as OK (with the numerical code 200 as specified in RFC 2616). The Session Initiation Protocol

Session Initiation Protocol

The Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF-defined signaling protocol widely used for controlling communication sessions such as voice and video calls over Internet Protocol . The protocol can be used for creating, modifying and terminating two-party or multiparty sessions...

also defines a response, 200 OK, which conveys success for most requests (RFC 3261).

Some Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

distributions, including those based on Red Hat

Red Hat

Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

, display boot progress on successive lines on-screen which include [ OK ].

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Earliest documented examples

Etymology

Oll Korrect

Old Kinderhook

Choctaw: okeh

African origins

Spelling variations

Usage

International usage

Gesture

Computers

Further reading

External links