The origin of the term OK is often debated, but it actually comes from the 1840 presidential race and the OK club supporting Martin Van Buren. OK means Old Kinderhook, and despite negative press, the term became popular and is still used today. Abbreviations have always been popular, and OK remains a useful and common term.
There are many dubious explanations of the origin of the term OK. Some date the term, which is essentially an agreement or assent, to the Native American term “okeh” meaning an agreement. Others say the term comes from African American slaves. Some connect it to the Greek olla kalla which means “all right”.
In reality, these explanations are captious. We have precise written information about the origins of OK. It dates back to the 1840 presidential race of Martin Van Buren and the OK club, which supported him. OK was short for Old Kinderhook. Kinderhook, New York was where many of the club’s members came from, so the word has a double meaning.
OK quickly became useful as a simple means of declaring an agreement. However, it should be noted that the OK club failed to re-elect Martin Van Buren. The term appeared in public because many newspapers that didn’t support Van Buren began to define OK in negative ways. They used the word to mean Orfully Konfused, or Often Kontradicts, for example. Continued use of the term eventually migrated not only to the American language but is also used throughout the world.
Frequent use of a word, especially by the media, tends to make it popular. So we owe OK to the Republican media in the mid-19th century. Abbreviations before Van Buren’s election were quite popular, just as they are today. GT was used for “to go to Texas”, in much of the print media, and NG meant “not to go”. It’s hard to know why this word stuck and others didn’t.
We often use abbreviations in emails and text messages today, and some are migrating into common parlance. For example TTFN, or “ta ta for now,” is a frequent term, first used in the 1950s Disney film Tigger’s Winnie the Pooh. People can just say TTFN instead of saying the whole sentence.
In a world where brevity is often important, OK holds up well. While technically, it should be written as “okay,” OK is often the preferred spelling. It is a useful text term and a common term.
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