The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-09-09
THE ORIGIN OF 80. K"
THE FAMOUS A6eREvIATION PROB
ABLY CAME FROM THE CHOCTAW
Andrew jackson the First to Use the Ex-
pressiOn-Translatfon of a Choctaw
Word-Extract from an Old
Court Record.


IAHlefl''in magazine Oh iilSloTy.i
In the language of tho Choctaw Indians,
one of the most frequently recurring ex-
pres-ions is tho emphatic oke, with which
an affirmation or denial il concluded. This
oke pronounced with strong accent on the
last syllablel il one of the substitutes Tor the
copulative verb ito boz which i: wanting in
Choctaw. Ohe, pronounced in Choctaw,
has exactly the same sound the alpha
bette pronunciat ton of the %. X. in English.
The meaning Of the xpre>sion, rs nearly
as it can be conveyed in English, Is: That
is true; that j. all So" A few examples
out of many that might be cited, will illus
trate this. The Choctaw Indian Is good
fellow" Is expressed thus: Halifax api huma
Chahta ackukmah Oke, i'll which halifax api
huma means "lndian" literally, man-body-
rcd), achukmah means good" and Oke is
the copulativc EXPIRE 'sion. ut is So" In the
Rev. Cyrus Byin:,ton's Choctaw New Testa-
ment the first entence of Matt. 5, Is: I'VE
the salt of the earth" is: gakni in huppi
huchchia hobe, literally: "the earth its salt
ye; that is so.
To Gen. Andrew jackson is attributed the
Introduction OF the Choctaw word into
Anglo American speech. Before the war Of
1Sl2, in voyage up and down the Missis
sippi ami i'll trading expeditions overland
from Nashville, Tenn, to Natchez, Miss,
through the Cnoctaw nation, he was brought
into frequent communication with the
Choctaws.
Gen. jackson. as erybody know was
prone to the use of downright and energetic
methods of assertion. Hearing TN en-
phatic oko so frequently utterei i.s the
Choctaw people, he learned III Ming
conveyed by it to the CIoc5tN %, al
APPROPRIATED 1t, out ~ HIATT H.. D.. va
purpo g. From him II 20 ~ +.
multitu lie. Thi; accom-. So. ,
X. has been current il t..r
year. If not trua, it. =,
ben trovato.
No one who has e, -
letter of Gen. Jac,, a.
story that he "a { t..
president of the u t-....
in kaltem blute. aIr.tv.i 30
the letters o. X, ,rt '..'
were the proper in,i al
jackson was no ScIOn
grossly ignorant OF T. I-:.is 49,
to fall into bluad ~ II "a. o'. .'.-
have indorsed dom a.. w. '.-.-
.. X a ocular eym1 / q Ia,
Choctaw expression. f.In tIry "a
letters were seriouslF intsn lal il, h ~ Ell,
abbreviation Of IL korr ct ". l.r i..n :.
"a Mr.. George Bancroft III :gr,t,, a, y
pc teriori invention of the encmr-to W:t.
the Whgs--during the hot political conte L j.,
in the days of the roaring 4J's
That the abbreviation o. h was coined by
jackson himself anu used by him long year
before it passed into current slang, ii Al ;
curious confirmation in extract from the
Old court records of Sumner county, Tenn,
quoted by Parton in his Life of Jackson"
vol. l, page 1856
October 6, 1920. Andrew jackson, E-q.
proved bill of sale from Hugh McGary to
Casper Mansker, for IA negro man, which
wa, .. r." IA common western mistake,
adds Mr. Parton. "for O. R., which means
Ordered Recorded. Hence, perhaps, the
saying o. K-"I
1t is not more likely that the o. K of thi
entry was suggested by jackson himself, as
brief way of saying, after the Chocta W
fashion that the claim had been legally
male out9