The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1885-10-01
THE ORIGIN OF 80. X"

A Suggestion That jackson Got His
Famous Abbreviation From the Choc-
taw.
In the language of the Choctaw
Indians, one of the most frequently re-
curing expressions is the emphatic oke,
with which an affirmation or denial is
concluded. This oke pronounced with
strong accent on the last syllable) is
one of the substitutes for the copulative
verb to be, which is wanting in Choc-
taw. Oke, as pronounced in Choctaw,
has exactly the same sound as the
alphabetic pronunciation of the letters
o. K. in English.
The meaning of expression, as nearly
as it can be conveyed in English, is;
''That is true; THAT is all SO" A few
examples, out of many that might be
cited, will illustrate this. THE Choc-
taw Indian is a good fellow is ex-
pressed thus: Hattak api huma Chahta
achukmah oke, in which hattak api
huma means INDIAN Qiterally, man
body-red, aehukmah means good,
and oke is the copulatiye expression, at
is 500 In the Rev. Cyrus Byington's
Choctaw New Testament the first SEN
tence of Matt. 5, 13: s'Ye are the salt
of the earth. - is: gakni in huppi huch-
CHA hoke, literally: 1.-The earth is salt
ye; that is So
To General Andrew Jackson is at.
tributed the introduction of the Choctaw
word into our Anglo American speech.
Before the war of 1912, in VOYAGES up
and down the Mississippi and in trad
ing expeditions overland from Nash.
vile, Tenn, to Natchez, Miss, through
the Choctaw Nation, he was brought
into frequent communication with the
Choctaws
General Jackson, as everybody knows,
was prone to the use of downright and
energetic methods of assertion. Hear
ing this emphatic oke so frequently
uttered by the Choctaw people, he
Il armed the meaning conveyed by it to
the Choctaw mind and appropriated. it,
out Of hand, to his own purposes. From
him it passed over to the multitude.
This account of the origin of o. K. has
been current in the South for many
years, Ii not true, it is, to say the
leaSt, 0eR r0CGt0.
No one who has ever read an auto.
graph letter of General Jaekson's will
easily credit the story that he was in
the habit, when he was President of the
United Stanes. of indorsing, in kaItem
Btute, applications for office, with the
letters o. K, under the belief that these
were the proper initials for s.all cor
rect" Jackson was no scholar, but he
was not so grossly ignorant of English
orthography as to fall into blunder oi
that sort. He may have Endorsed docu
ments with the letters o. X. as a iocu
lar symbol of his fayorite Choctaw
expression. The story that these letters
were seriously intended by him as an
abbreviation of ''oll korrecta' was prob
ably, as Mr.. George Bancroft suggests,
an q posteriori invention of the enemy
to wit, the Whigs-durfhg the hot
political contests in the days Of the roar
ing '40's.
That the abbreviation o. K. was
coined by Jackson himself and used by
him long years before it passed into
current slang, finds curious confirmation
in an extract from the old court
records of Summer County, Tenn,
quoted by Parton in his Life of Jack.
son.. vol. 1, p. 1856:
October 6, 1890. Andrew Jackson.
ESQ. proved a bill of sale from Hug b
McGary to Casper Mansker, for negro
man, which was O. f." F"A common
Western mistake adds Mr.. Parton,
for O. R.. which means Ordered Re.
corded. Hence, perhaps, the saying o.
K."]
Is it not more likely that the o. X. oi
this entry was suggested by Jackson
himself. as brief way of saying. after
the Choctaw fashion, that the claim had
been legally made out?-Amertcan
magazine Of History.