OK
Subtitle: the improbable story of America's greatest word
By: Allan Metcalf.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 210
ISBN-13: 9780195377934
Subjects: English language -- United States -- Etymology; English language -- Usage; Americanisms; United States -- History -- Terminology
Description: It is said to be the most frequently spoken (or typed) word on the planet, more common than an infant's first word ma or the ever present beverage Coke. It was even the first word spoken on the moon. It is "OK", the most ubiquitous and invisible of American expressions, one used countless times every day. Yet few of us know the secret history of OK, how it was coined, what it stood for, and the amazing extent of its influence. The author, a writer on language, here traces the evolution of America's most popular word, ranging across American history with portraits of the nooks and crannies in which OK survived and prospered. He describes how OK was born as a lame joke in a newspaper article in 1839, used as a supposedly humorous abbreviation for "oll korrect" (ie, "all correct"), but should have died a quick death, as most clever coinages do. But OK was swept along in a nineteenth century fad for abbreviations, was appropriated by a presidential campaign (one of the candidates being called "Old Kinderhook"), and finally was picked up by operators of the telegraph. Over the next century and a half, it established a firm toehold in the American lexicon, and eventually became embedded in pop culture, from the "I'm OK, You're OK" of 1970's transactional analysis, to Ned Flanders' absurd "Okeley Dokeley!" Indeed, OK became emblematic of a uniquely American attitude, and is one of our most successful global exports.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: the ABCs of OK; title: A saturday morning in Boston; title: 1840: Old kinderhook is OK; title: Hoax: Andrew Jackson's misspelling; title: Aesthetics: the look and sound of OK; title: False origins; title: The business of OK; title: O.K. clubs; title: The literary OK; title: Oklahoma is OK; title: Okey-dokey; title: Modern OK literature; title: The Practical OK; title: The world and England; title: The lifemanship OK; title: The psychological OK; title: The new American philosophy.