How the LOL of the 1830s became America’s, and subsequently the world’s favourite abbreviation. To wit:

Young Boston intellectuals in the early 1800s used a humorous code of abbreviated phrases, like “KC,” or “knuff ced”; “KY,” “know yuse”; and “OW,” “oll wright.” And while most of them eventually fell out of fashion, one abbreviation persisted: “OK,” or “oll korrect.

MORE: Why We Say OK (Vox)

kottke

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3 thoughts on “Oll Korrect

  1. Iwerzon

    I read many years ago a study of modern American slang which cited ‘OK’ as coming from the African slave lexicon and infiltrating modern parlance over many generations.

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