The Origins of 'OK'

The term 'OK' is arguably one of the most commonly used expressions worldwide, but do you know its origins? While there have been many fanciful stories about its origin, OK actually originated in 1839 in a Boston newspaper.

It was born as a deliberate misspelling of 'all correct', which was humorously written as 'oll korrect'.

During this era, it was a trend among intellectuals and writers to deliberately misspell phrases, and OK got its initial popularity from this linguistic fad.

It became widely recognized and adopted during the 1840 U.S.

presidential election, when supporters of Martin Van Buren, who was nicknamed 'Old Kinderhook', formed the 'OK Club'.

Since then, it became part of the universally accepted expressions, appearing in almost every conversation in a wide range of contexts for its simplicity to communicate approval, agreement, or that things are going fine..