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)