Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: History of OK

Transcript

Short Stuff: History of OK · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, standing in for day Eve,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and that makes this short stuff. Okay, m.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Dave Rus and HowStuffWorks dot com and grammarly
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: for this, because we're talking about okay, which some people
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: say is one of the most versatile and one of
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the greatest words in the English language.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't disagree.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I don't either. I say, like more, but I think
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: okay is probably second in my vocabulary.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Grammarly, we'll tell you that okay can be used in
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: myriad ways and it's a very versatile word.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: It can be used as.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: An adjective, Oh that's okay, Yeah, that's just okay, like
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: how was it okay?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Right exactly.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: It can be an interjection okay, okay, let's talk, or
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: someone's talking too much, okay, okay, right.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It can be used in the verb sense, like
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: give me an example.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: That guy's really okaying that boat all over the lake.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's not that's not right, more like it's being
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: okay as we.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Speak, Oh good, yes, thank you, all right.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Or it can be used in the noun sense you
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: want to try that one.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm having an Okay for breakfast.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Nope, uh, we got the Okay, it's all good, yeh,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I know, so boring.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, No, it's not boring. I'm just disgusting with myself.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: So very versatile word and the origin of okay. I
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: don't even think we should go over all the kind
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: of dumb ideas people have had, because we're pretty sure
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: we know where it came from, right, Okay.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: See, so yeah, we know where it came from, almost
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: certainly thanks to an etymologist named Alan Walker Reid, who
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: at some point apparently put down his insects in his
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: lab and started researching origins. I don't know why, but
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Reid was working back in the nineteen sixties and he essentially,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: through really hardcore, old timey pre internet research, Yeah, traced
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: back the origin of oka, the letter O and the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: letter K and the meaning of it as we understand it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And it's got one heck of a rump slap in
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: origin if you ask me.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: He also had a newsletter called Stuff you Should Know
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: that ran for fifteen years, but he only put out
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: four topics because it took him so long.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it took a while. But this is the sixties.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Even that joke was not okay.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It was okay, it was okay.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: So what he found out is the following in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: early nineteenth century, when printing was sort of a new
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: sort of not new, but it was cheaper to do
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: than it had been previously, and there was an explosion
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: of printing. Yeah, and one of the things that people
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: started putting out were something on the penny press, like
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: these sort of rags that were had a little bit
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: of news to them, but also some opinion stuff, some jokes.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: This is what's trending.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: This is a little witty poem, you know, just little
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: things like that. They've kind of likens it to the
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Internet of the eighteen thirties. And there was a lot
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: of back and forth about this stuff through the editors
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: of these penny papers. I guess they would they would
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: sort of respond to one another through their own penny papers.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they would trash talk one another, kind of like
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: how our old stale rivalry with John Strickland, Oh gosh,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: kind of like that, right, uh huh. So there was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that trash talking or that joking in joking back and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: forth between editors of these penny papers coincided with a
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: trend that Reid called a cranes in starting in the
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: summer of eighteen thirty eight. That's how good this guy's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: research was. He pinned it down to that, starting in Boston,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: that people started using abbreviations for everything. It was like
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: they thought that was so hilarious in eighteen thirties Boston.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is funny, like you think you might think
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: now is so over abbreviated like this point in time,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: with texting in the Internet, with lols and I don't
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: even know what half of them mean. I feel like
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: and lo means lots of love, lots of love. Okay,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: that's what I thought. But the craze started back then.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And here's just a few examples that Dave dug up,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: let me see, dl ec do let them come, or
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: GTDHD give the devil a due, stuff.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Like that, or WYG will you go?
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Oh? Will you go?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And so this started thanks to Charles Gordon Green,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: editor of Boston's Morning Post, back in eighteen thirty eight,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and by the following year, this initial language is what
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: they called it. It spread from Boston all the way
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to New York and elsewhere. It was a jam. It
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: was a craze and people were writing about it, people
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: were using it. So you have part one of where
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Oka came from. You have an abbreviation craze that is
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: being spreading like wildfire thanks to the penny papers that
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: you can find in any major city in the US.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Now that's right, and we're going to take a break
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: and we'll tell you about another craze that also coincided
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: that made okay okay right after this.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Well, now we're.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: two from Josh Pam Chuck. It's stuff you should.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Know, all right, all right, So several things aligned here
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: to make okay stick. We talked about the abbreviation craze,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: but no one is going around saying GTDHD give the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: devil his due. Most of these fell by the wayside
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: over time. Okay did not because Okay also coincided with
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: another weird trend, which was purposefully misspelling things. It was
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: just funny, I guess. I don't know if it was
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: like a bit where you were trying to appear like
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: you were just a big dummy or what. But it
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: became a thing where people would write, and especially in
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: these these penny press papers, they would misspell things. They
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: would write an opinion piece or like a letter, and
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: it's things were purposely misspelled, and people thought it was hysterical. Yeah,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: and so you got things like, all of a sudden,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: you had abbreviations that were based on misspellings, like KG
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: for no go, which would be obviously n O g
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: O instead of k now go, but they would still
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: say KG and people just rolled with laughter.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no know stood in for no N a lot,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: so no go no use was actually ky. They spelled
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: use with the y at the beginning.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And you know what's funny is quite a few times
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: over the years people have emailed us and done s
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Y S N by accident, and it's sort of kind
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: of right aligned with this, you know.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some people also do s U S k oh. Yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I've seen that too, which makes sense. Took me years
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to figure that one out. I always thought it was
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: fat fingered or something. But as far as our episode
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: is concerned, when OW came along, the origins of okay
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: started to blossom. Now started to sprout from the ground
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: like a seedling with just one leaf attached.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: That's right, because OW stood for all right, all being
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: spelled ol l because and write being spelled w r
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: ight because misspelling.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Things was hysterical, hilarious.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Right, So are you following those people? It's a little confusing, I.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Think again, they thought this was witty and it was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: a huge trend. And finally, in eighteen thirty nine, March
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: twenty first heads Off to Alan Walker read again for
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: real pinpointed it. There was another etymologist that said he
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: read must have spent hundreds of hours digging through tons
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and tons of physical newspapers, journals, private letters, and other documents.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: What that man did was absolutely astounding. And that guy
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Anatoty Lieberman, a linguist and translator of from the University
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: of Minnesota, was absolutely right. And what reed did he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: found the day when Okay was born?
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the very day, Because there was some trash talking
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: going on. The aforementioned editor of the Morning Post, Charles
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Gordon Green, was trash talking with the Providence Journal Rhode
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Island editor and there was something about the There was
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: a satirical citizens group called the Anti Bell Ringing Society
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: in Boston.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: The A. B. R. S. Green was a member.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: The editor of the Providence Rhode Island Journal was making
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: fun of Green, and they were kind of going back
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: and forth. And what happens at the end of this exchange.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Green says all correct, but he spelled it O K
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: as an O L L K O R R E
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: C T. He abbreviated, purposely misspelled and gave birth to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: O K.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: So this in this case it was a lowercase with
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: periods little dot, little k dot.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: And this might have actually.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Gone away again as well, even though it started being
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: used a little bit in these penny rags. But along
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: comes another coincidence with Martin van Buren, the eighth President
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: of the United States, was running for re election. I
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: believe he was from the small town of Kinderhook, New York,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and like Andrew Jackson and Old Hickory, he took on
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: the nickname Old Kinderhook.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And then what happened, well, that became his campaign slogan,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Okay is okay, Old Kinderhook is okay. And by this time,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: this is the eighteen forty presidential election. He lost to
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: William Henry Harrison. I died in thirty days, but the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: okay managed to live on as exactly the meaning that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: we use it for today. Like Okay, that's great, and
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it's actually evolved. I think they meant it much more enthusiastically.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Like he is okay, right, but.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: The linguist, well, I guess he's the late linguist Alan Metcalf.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I think he really did a great job at getting
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to the heart of what okay does. Now we don't
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: we can use it enthusiastically. Sometimes when we do that,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we're using it actually sarcastically or telling somebody to get
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: off our back. But more often than not, as Metcalf
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: pointed out, it's neutral, right, And he really got to
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: it when he kind of I should say, he nailed
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it on the head when he when he identified it
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: as neutral.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, but an affirmative neutral, So it's an affirmative.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: It affirms.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: It's a reply that affirms something, but not with any
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: kind of enthusiasm.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Right, So he was saying like it filled a void. Yeah,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and avoid that we didn't even know we need it
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: because you could do the same thing. You could affirm
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: something in the positive with yes, good, fine, excellent, all right.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Mah wasn't around yet, I guess.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But all of those say not only yes I'm affirming this,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: but yes, I say I think this is actually like
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: a good thing or a positive thing. It has some
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: venear to it. Okay is basically just like copy. I
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: got it. I know what you're saying, Yes, go ahead
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: and do that. I'm not saying I think what you're
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: doing is great. But if you're asking me for permission,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I just gave you permission with just okay. And that's
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: just one use of it as being neutral. But I
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: think that's a that's a great I think that was
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of great insight.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: He had no totally.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: If you're wondering about okay A why lowercase? There are
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: different rules oka A why came after O dot k dot.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: But if you're a writer, they you know, writers use
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: things called style guides if you write for newspapers or
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: like when we used to write for HowStuffWorks dot.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Com, we what did we use? Do you remember? We used? Ap?
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: So ap uses uppercase, ok no periods. The Chicago Manual
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of Style, which is another popular one, uses both. They
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: usually capitalize okah and periods are not necessary but acceptable Grammarly,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: for their part, says okay.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: When you.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Know, uppercase ok for the beginning of a sentence, but
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: lowercase ok a y otherwise and if you're wondering. Overall,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: they found that uppercase ok is used about a third
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: of the time, and edited writing and okay ay about
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: two thirds of the time, which surprised me because I
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: never ever write or type out okay ay.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Oh I do. That's what I use the most.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Oh capital okay for me, baby, It.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Seems aggressive to me, so I tend to shy away
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: from that.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because now that capitals have taken on a
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: meaning of like you're yelling at something.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Exactly, they're hostile. So a little lowercase okay and that
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: auy just adds a little extra like hug on to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the end of it.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I like it, all right, I'll consider it.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: What I want to know is how many people are
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: going to write in about your entomology joke oh okay.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you Probably few far less now.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Though, someone just stop typing there, I are.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Well, since Chuck just referenced somebody stop typing. Obviously, short
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: stuff is out.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.