But experts do agree that the word is purely American. There are eight tiles of each number: two red, two yellow, two green and two black. These expressions were first used in the 1930s. Mencken wrote about Woodrow Wilson using the spelling “okeh,” but that one didn’t stick. Send a Hangouts chat message: "Send a Hangouts message to Bob" or "Start a Hangouts chat." It may be common, but no one can seem to agree on how the “OK” came to be. I like “OK” because it’s more true to the origin and honors those wacky 19th century journalists. So far, they’ve been kind enough to indulge me. Audio. If you thought this Words and Their Stories was okay, you can find more at our website at learningenglish.voanews.com. A-Okay is a space-age expression. His flight ended when his spacecraft landed in the ocean, as planned. a judge will have to OK the search warrant 'OK' and 'okay' are both OK. Today, the two spellings peacefully coexist: the Associated Press emphatically recommends the two-letter spelling, and the Chicago Manual of Style says both are fine, but the “O-K-A-Y” spelling looks more like a word. Acknowledgement of country. (conceding) → d'accord Okay, there is a slight difference → D'accord, il y a une légère différence. And in case you want even more spelling options, in 1919, H.L. Still others say a political organization invented the word. In the case of O.K., the abbreviation is of "oll korrect.". He said the word began being used in the 1830s. More details. People want biblical guidance, and so here is my effort at biblical wisdom. Call a friend: "Call Lindsay Hampson" or "Call Mom." Okay means “all right” or “acceptable.” It expresses agreement or approval. Define okay. ♢ He can’t start until his boss gives him the OK. adv. Other people say a railroad worker named Obadiah Kelly invented the word long ago. Okay is a town along the east bank of the Verdigris River in Wagoner County, Oklahoma, United States. The backs of the tiles are plain, so tiles that are face down on the table or held by another player all look the same. OK, Okay, Okey-Dokey Are A-Okay July 18, 2015 In this 1985 file photo, President Ronald Reagan gives the A OK sign from the window of his hospital room … The New Yorker, for example, writes it as two letters with a period after each: “O.K.”. Okay, which means the same thing, is the preferred spelling of the term by the Chicago style guide. However, some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age. OkCupid requires you enable Javascript in your browser. oʊ ˈ k eɪ / is a more intensive word form of the English term OK.The phrase can be accompanied by, or substituted with, the A-OK sign.. History. My usual wishy-washy countenance turns to granite. I love "OK" so much I fight for it with my editors. Bedroom Suites. He says okely-dokely. "OK" and "okay" are both correct. A Common Word of Mysterious Origin. Then, it's only OK (or okay) to use their preferred version Gah! The faces of the tiles are numbered from 1 to 13, with the numbers printed in various colours. Text a friend: "Text Jason that I'm running 5 minutes late." for "no go," as if spelled "know go;" N.C. for "'nuff ced;" K.Y. Point systems are notoriously fiddly, so here it's been pared down to three simple possibilities: 3 Stars = Good 2 Stars = Ok 1 Star = Bad. Accessories. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. I almost always accept my copy editors' changes—except when they try to change "OK" to "okay." 22439 GIFs. The population was 620 at the 2010 census, a 3.9 percent increase over the figure of 597 recorded in 2000. Noun We need her OK on this before we place the order. text messaging didn’t really take off until about the year 2000, OK: The improbable story of America’s greatest word, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. First of all, I am assuming the question is only relating to people who are married when I … This means everything is fine. One story says it was first used during the early days of the telephone to tell an operator that a message had been received. So, yes, this mild form of survivor guilt is the least of the nation’s worries. Oh no! I am okay with this question. Mignon Fogarty is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips and the author of seven books on language, including the New York Times bestseller "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing." Bedding. Married Couples Only. People often assume that it's tough to be my copy editor, but the truth is that I'm pretty easygoing. I am Seth T. Hahne and these are my reviews. 👌 OK Hand Emoji Meaning. The Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria and funded by the Victorian Government. Millions of people all over the world use the word okay. Okey is a popular Turkish game of the Rummy family, played with a set of 106 wooden tiles. The organization supported Martin Van Buren for president in 1840. Quick & Dirty Tips™ and related trademarks appearing on this website are the property of Mignon Fogarty, Inc. and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. Thank goodness! There are also funny ways to say okay. The president is recovering from surgery performed Saturday to remove a cancerous polyp. Start a Hangouts video call: "Start a video call" or "Video call Jane using Hangouts." This little phrase is a variant of okay.It is 20th century American and first appears in print in a 1932 edition of American Speech.. See also: OK, okay give somebody/get the OˈK/oˈkay ( informal ) give somebody/receive approval or permission: I’m waiting to get the OK before I start on the project. There’s no difference between OK and okay. The URL has been copied to your clipboard, In this 1985 file photo, President Ronald Reagan gives the A OK sign from the window of his hospital room at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland as first lady Nancy Reagan waves to a small group below. It was a short way of writing a different spelling of the words “all correct.” Some foreign-born people wrote “all correct” as “o-l-l k-o-r-r-e-c-t,” and used the letters O.K. Copyright © 2021 Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC. In American Sign Language (ASL), the number nine is represented with this gesture. You have the answers to the questions. okay synonyms, okay pronunciation, okay translation, English dictionary definition of okay. The code has been copied to your clipboard. (AP Photo/Scott Stewart). One 6-side… There are several alternative spellings - okay-doke, okey-doke, okee-doke, etc. n. adj. Etymology and history. Learn more. Club. Okey dokey definition is - —used to express assent. It is a little bit difficult and sensitive, but it is okay. Reaction to the “OK” symbol hoax was so widespread in the spring and summer of 2017 that a number of people on the far right began deliberately to use the gesture—typically making the sign while posing for photographs uploaded to social media—in order to continue the trolling and spread it further. [Note: The original version of this article said that Chicago style is "okay," which is not correct.]. In formal writing, follow the requirements of your style guide. How to use okey dokey in a sentence. You could speculate that the rise of "OK" was because text messaging caused people to favor the shorter spelling, which then eventually made its way into books, but text messaging didn’t really take off until about the year 2000, so the rise of the two-word spelling doesn’t quite match up with text messaging. Since the early 1800s, the gesture increasingly became associated with the word “okay” and its abbreviation “ok.” The gesture is also important in the Hindu and Buddhist worlds, as well as in yoga, where it is known as mudra or vitarka mudra, a symbol of inner perfection. The OK hand emoji is also referred to as the A-OK, OK, or OK hand sign emoji.. Like the word OK, the OK hand emoji can convey simple agreement, understanding, or satisfaction. & v. ... (= right then) → OK Okay, let's go → OK, allons-y. To sum up, you can usually use whichever spelling you prefer. Sort: Relevant Newest # yes # ok # nice # good job # congratulations yes # ok # nice # good job # congratulations # cute # dog # animated # cartoon Smart News Keeping you current How the Word “OK” Was Invented 175 Years Ago OK is an editorial joke run wild It's seriously all right to use either OK or okay unless you're writing for an editor who adheres to AP or Chicago style. Here's why. They called their group, the O.K. Then I become a raving maniac. The language spread across the country. The Choctaw word “okeh” means the same as the American word okay. What's the origin of the phrase 'Okey dokey'? This program was written by Shelley Gollust. OK Furniture is another Trading Division of Shoprite Holding Limited, which currently operates 548 outlets. Faith Lapidus tells us more. How to use OK in a sentence. She is an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame, and the show is a five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. One of my favorite stories is the origin of "OK," and to me, "OK" is the purer form. Some people say it came from the Native American Indian tribe known as the Choctaw. Okay and OK are two acceptable spellings of the same word. He was the first American to be launched into space. In addition there are two special tiles without numbers - these are known in this game as "false jokers" (in Turkish "sahte okey"). Learn more Okay. Find 242 ways to say OK, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. "OK" was born in America in the 1830s. OK is an editorial joke run wild . 'It is OK to ask for help’ mini-booklet (Cook Islands Māori) ‘It is OK to ask for help’ mini-booklet (Samoan) ‘It is OK to ask for help’ mini-booklet (English) ‘It is OK to ask for help’ mini-booklet (Tongan) It is OK to help logo; It is OK to ask for help logo; It's not OK - brown logo; It's not OK one-colour logo Much like the text messaging abbreviations of today, "OK" was an abbreviation for a funny misspelling of "all correct": "oll korrekt." Experts say early explorers in the American West spoke the Choctaw language in the nineteenth century. Today, the two spellings peacefully coexist: the Associated Press emphatically recommends the two-letter spelling, and the Chicago Manual of Style says both are fine, but the “O-K-A-Y” spelling looks more like a word. If you have to follow AP style, you’ll use “OK,” but if not, you have some leeway, and you can use whichever one you like. Shepard reported: "Everything is A-Okay.”. Today, a character on the American television series, “The Simpsons,” says it another way. It's usually stated in a dismissive fashion. Because the “O-K-A-Y” spelling seems to be preferred by book publishers, though, that’s the dominant form in fiction, as you can see from the following Google Ngram search that is limited to English fiction: When the search is more broad, however, covering all English in Google Books, you can see that "OK" overtook "okay" in 1990, and continues to be used more often today. About the Site In fact, some people say the word is used more often than any other word in the world. for "know yuse"). Finally, some people say that “OK” is the most widely recognized English word in the world, and if you want to learn every detail of the story, the English and Journalism professor Allan Metcalf has written an entire 240-page book about it called “OK: The improbable story of America’s greatest word.” And for the record, note that he used the two-letter spelling. A-okay or A-OK / ˌ eɪ. That would be an anachronism). OK definition: 1. used to show that you agree with something or agree to do something: 2. used to check that…. and DVRCV acknowledge Aboriginal people as the traditional owners of the lands and waters throughout Australia. Not everyone agrees with this explanation, either. This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). Boston journalists are credited with "OK," and according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the “okay” spelling didn’t appear until 1895 in an Australian publication based in Sydney called “The Bulletin.” (So again, if you are writing a novel, you shouldn’t use the "okay" spelling before at least 1895.). Some people say okey-dokey or okey-doke. For those of you who might be wondering, the Associated Press spells “OK” without periods, but some publications do use them. Then there is the expression A-Okay. (So as an aside, you wouldn’t want to use "OK" in a novel set before the 1830s. You might ask your brother, “Is it okay if I borrow your car?” Or if someone asks you to do something, you might say, “Okay, I will.” Still, language experts do not agree about where the word came from. Which one you use depends on which style guide you follow. OK (interj.) is resourced by. Thanks, Faith. Good Ok Bad features reviews of comics, graphic novels, manga, et cetera using a rare and auspicious three-star rating system. Her popular LinkedIn Learning courses help people write better to communicate better. The phrase 'weird flex but ok' is said when someone proudly boasts or brags about something that most people would find either awkward, irrelevant or just plain weird. The letters were taken from the name of the town where Martin Van Buren was born — Old Kinderhook, New York. Verb The boss needs to OK this before we place the order. Represents “I’m okay” or “yes, that’s correct / good”. It stuck. Now, the VOA Learning English program, Words and Their Stories. And it has spread to almost every country on Earth. To flex means to boast or show off about something. They are both correct. Many people who focus entirely on give, give, give end up overwhelmed, fatigued, and stressed. Being lied to, or someone trying to pull the wool over your eyes. They had "OW" for "oll wright” (a misspelling of “all right”) and “NS” for “nuff said,” but “OK” stuck while the others fell into obscurity because president Martin Van Buren, whose nickname was Old Kinderhook, because he was born in Kinderhook, NY, abbreviated “Old Kinderhook” into “OK” and adopted the campaign slogan "Vote for OK.” He called his campaign supporters the "OK Club,” and all that campaign publicity established "OK" in the American lexicon. OK definition is - all right. OK OK 3, okay verb (past tense and past participle OK’d, present participle OK'ing, third person singular OK’s or okayed, okaying, okays) [transitive] informal AGREE LET/ALLOW to say officially that you will agree to something or allow it to happen The plans have been okayed, so let’s get started as soon as possible. A gesture showing the index finger and thumb touching to make an open circle. What’s OK at Home? Language expert Allen Walker Read wrote about the word okay in reports published in the 1960s. "all right, correct," 1839, only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c. 1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (such as K.G. What’s OK at Home? It can be good to be a little selfish to take care of your emotional, mental, and physical well-being. As for “okay,” it came around a few decades after “OK,” and stuck around, as a phonetical lengthening. Okay and OK mean the same thing. She has appeared as a guest expert on the Oprah Winfrey Show and the Today Show. My publisher’s style is “O-K-A-Y,” but to honor the word's origins, I insist on the "OK" spelling. The boss gave his okay. Journalists of the time seemed to have loads of fun making up these off-kilter, insidery abbreviations. They said he put the first letters of his names -- O and K -- on each object people gave him to send on the train. Journalists in the 1830s came up with other odd abbreviations with similar origins too. These are real concerns. It was used in 1961 during the flight of astronaut Alan Shepard.