The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1885-10-17
The Origin Of 20. K"

In the language of the Choctaw Indi-
ans, one of the most frequently recurring
expression 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 copulatiYe verb to be which is wanting
in Choctaw. Oke, as pronounced in Choc-
taw, has exactly the same sound as the al
phabetic pronunciation of the letters .. K.
in English.
The meaning of the 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, viii illus
trate this. "The Choctaw Indian is good
fellow" is expressed thus: @Hattak api hui
ma Chahta achukmah oke," in which
hattak api means aIndian" Literally, man.
body-red), achukmah means s'good, and
oke is the copulative expression, sit is so. !"
In Rev. Cyrus Byington's Choctaw New
Testament the first sentence of Matt v. ID:
aye are the salt of the earth, is: 1gakni in
huppi huchchia hoke," literally: ''the earth
its salt ye; that is SO.
To Gen. Andrew Jackson is attributed
the introduction of the Choctaw word into
our Anglo-American speech Before the
war of 1872, in voyages up and down the
Mississippi and in trading expeditions over
land from Nashville, Tenn, to Natchez,
Miss, through the Choctaw Nation, he was
brought into frequent communication with
the Choctaws.
Gen. Jackson, as everybody knows, was
prone to the use of downright and energetic
methods of assertion. Hearing this EN-
phatic oke so frequently uttered by the
Choctaw people, he learned 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. IF not true, it is, to say the
least, ben trovato.
No one who has ever read an autograph
letter of Gen. Jackson's will easily credit
the story that he was in the habit, when
he was President of the United States, of
indorsing, in kaltem blute, applications for
Office with the letters O. K, under the be-
lief that these were the proper initials for
ssall correct" Jackson was no scholar, but
he was not so grossly ignorant of English
photography as to fall into blunder of
that sort. He may have Endorsed docu-
ments with the letter. O. K. as a jocular
symbol of his favorite Choctaw expression.
The story that these letters were seriously
intended by him as an ahbreviation of coll
korrect" was probably, as Mr.. George
Bancroft suggest, an posteriori invention
of the enemy-to wit, the Whigs-during
the hot political contests in the days of the
roaring '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 Sumner
county, Tennessee, quoted by Parton in
his Life of Jackson, vol. 1 Up. 1876.
October 6, 1890. Andrew jackson,
Esq, proved bill of sale from Hugh
McGary to Casper Mansker, negro man,
which was 0. K" [''A common Western
mistake, adds Mr. Parton, efor O. r.,
which means Ordered Recorded Hence,
perhaps, the saying O. XII
It is not more likely that the O. K. of
this entry was suggested by jackson him
self, as brief way of saying, after the
Choctaw fashion, that the claim had been
legally made out?