OK [electronic resource] : the improbable story of America's greatest word / Allan Metcalf.
Metcalf, Allan A.
2011
PE2831 .M48 2010eb
Available Online

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Title OK [electronic resource] : the improbable story of America's greatest word / Allan Metcalf.
Author Metcalf, Allan A.
ISBN 9780199703296 (electronic bk.)
9780195377934
Publication Details New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2011.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (xii, 210 p.)
Call Number PE2831 .M48 2010eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 427/.973
Summary 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 authot, 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.
Note Includes index.
Description based on print version record.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Available in Other Form OK.
Linked Resources Online access
Record Appears in Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
The ABCs of OK
A Saturday morning in Boston
1840 : Old Kinderhook is OK
Hoax : Andrew Jackson's misspelling
Aesthetics : the look and sound of OK
False origins
The business of OK
O.K. clubs
The literary OK
Oklahoma is OK
Okey-dokey
Modern OK literature
The Practical OK
The world
and England
The lifemanship OK
The psychological OK
The American philosophy.

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