People are just only discovering what OK means and are shocked by how old it is
MOST people use the word OK on a daily basis, but did you know there is an actual meaning behind this common word?
Social media users are just realising that they have become so used to using the word that they didn’t think about the full meaning.
The word OK is said to originate from a misspelling ‘fad’ as far back as the 1830s, where people purposefully spelt the phrase ‘all correct’ as ‘oll korrect’.
This was part of a wider trend of deliberately misspelling or abbreviating words at the time.
One Twitter user said: “I was today years old when I found out that “OK” stands for all correct. (actually for “oll korrect” from the slang)”
Another posted: “I’ve lived a lie all my life before fake news were even a thing. “Ok” is not 0 kills but “oll korrect”?????”
The misspelling might have gone viral in the 1800s, but people didn’t become aware of the origins until etymologist Allen Read discovered it in the 1960s.
It turns out he went through old papers from that time, and discovered a Boston newspaper in 1938 that used initials for phrases – one of which was OK.
Now people are finding it funny that it all stems back to a very old meme.
One Twitter user said: “btw the world’s most recognizable word, “okay/OK”, comes from a fad in the 1830s where people purposely misspelt “all correct” as “oll korrect” aka, the word “okay” is the product of a nineteenth century MEME”.
Another said: “literally started as a 1830s meme from young people in boston: oll korrect”
One even hinted that we might have been close to using a different two letter affirmation: “OK stands for oll korrect and it was a meme that went viral. a predecessor of OK was supposedly OW (oll wright)”
This comes as people are just realising the true meaning of the word Haribo.
There are other, less established theories behind the origins of the word, but I guess we’ll all have to be OK with not knowing exactly which one is correct.