COINING A PHRASE
Sunday, March 20 — One of the most distinctive and near universal American colloquialisms — the affirmation “OK” — appeared in public for the first time this month in 1839. There have been claims that “OK” (‘oh-kay’) derives from languages as diverse as Greek and Choctaw, and that it appeared in earlier American documents. But it was first published in a Boston Morning Post story with a brief definition. While “OK” took off around the country, and eventually the world with variants in some two dozen languages, time KO’d the Boston Post. That paper folded in 1956 after 125 years of publication. Today in the U.S., there are nearly 7,500 daily, weekly or other newspaper publishers still doing OK in this digital age.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
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