What is Digg?169 Comments
- fontoon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+167In grammar school we were taught to spell OK as Okay, and that OK was just an abbreviation, I wonder how that fits into the etymology.
- Rfriaz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+147This is why Digg needs a picture section...?
- groovytrance, on 10/12/2007, -2/+138You were also all taught that Pluto was a planet... haha, fools!
- wonderchemist, on 10/12/2007, -10/+137OK clearly means Oklahoma.
- HunterTV, on 10/12/2007, -2/+104150 years from now they'll be arguing the etymology of PWNED. That's depressing.
- screamthenrun, on 10/12/2007, -4/+84okay..
- NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -1/+71If "lolz" replaces actual laughter, the world will be a dark, dark place.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+73BREAKING NEWS:
OK its being replaced by w00t!!!1!! - Koopa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+58I can't wait for an article to be written 150 years from now about the origins of LOL, ROFL, and BRB=)
- katanna, on 10/12/2007, -10/+55I always thought it stood for "Okily-Dokily."
Matthew - baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -5/+50yuppers, it says on my license plate, "Oklahoma is OK"
- maklershed, on 10/12/2007, -4/+49Interesting. A subject I never really thought about.
- HijackedFlavor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+46Comical abbreviation fads FTW.
- joshpowell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+43God I hope not.
- gringer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+41given the mashup of English, it'll probably be something like "pond" by then
- AnimalTaglits, on 10/12/2007, -6/+46okely dokely
- Ubergoober3, on 10/12/2007, -19/+59who actually has the attention span to read that, tell us what it means.
- fober, on 10/12/2007, -4/+37"Oll Korrect"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okay
for more info. - PhoenixAvatar2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27all correct...?
RTFA: The letters, not to keep you guessing, stand for "oll korrect." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s. - codyman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25I remember in fourth grade they did the same (OK = okay)... but it wasn't prehistoric ancient times of 35 years ago, it was more like 10... :-)
- daborg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25"So either I'm really ***** trendy, or just a nerd."
You're talking about it on Digg. Take a guess. - ocellnuri, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25I wonder if 'lolz' will be as valid and common place 150 years from now...
- narzy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24it's the initials of Obi wan Kenobi...everyone knows that...
- drewhenson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Of the many competing theories about the origins of OK, the one now most widely accepted is that the letters stand for oll or orl korrect , a facetious early-19th-century American phonetic spelling of all correct . This was reinforced by the fact that they were also coincidentally the initial letters of Old Kinderhook , the nickname of U.S. president Martin Van Buren (who was born in Kinderhook, New York State), which were used as a slogan in the presidential election of 1840 (a year after the first record of OK in print).
Microsoft® Encarta® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. - armbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16@themastersb: That's great, but some evidence for disproval would be nice.
- artofwar420, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21Woot.
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13And in 170 years, people will be saying, "Have you ever wondered what FTW stood for?"
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16"OK" is the most commonly used phrase in the world. You can use it in almost any country instead of yes.
- stoppedcode12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11"Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."
Most of these acronyms enjoyed only a brief popularity. But OK was an exception, no doubt because it came in so handy. It first found its way into print in Boston in March of 1839 and soon became widespread among the hipper element."
nuff said made it too. - halavais, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11So, then, KY Jelly has no use?
- otomo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Hypothetically, if we save the current explanations of the origins of words, in 150 years they will just pull up those.
Aren't computers grand? I mean.. ACG? - tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10It's interesting. We argue about the etymology of "OK" when we don't even have a good etymology of "w00t"!
- Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14"Because Wikipedia is always correct..."
They have six references for it... :-p Stop auto-blurting out these comments just because it's about Wikipedia, when the facts there are even better sourced than *this* article. - ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I was Van Buren for my 8th grade presidents day. I listed this in my paper about him but not many people believed me.
- daborg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"And in 170 years, people will be saying, "Have you ever wondered what FTW stood for?""
It's funny, I read "WTF" as "What The *****" in my head. When I first heard someone say "Double-U Tee Eff" I was like "WTF does that mean?" - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Quote from HunterTV
"150 years from now they'll be arguing the etymology of PWNED. That's depressing."
And they are going to get it all wrong... - Fryxell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9FTW already has 2 meanings
For The Win I think is the newest use
***** The World has been in use for much longer - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6He did cite a source: "The etymology of OK was masterfully explained by the distinguished Columbia University professor Allen Walker Read in a series of articles in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964."
- I_Soar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"People are going down the path to illiteracy with the way things are anymore."
That's what the rest of us have been saying about you Midwesterners ever since you began using "anymore" in positive declarations. - candre23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s." "Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings"
I wonder if people will still be using "LOL" and "FTW" 160 years from now, long ofter their original meaning is forgotten? - goodoldharris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Every major dictionary includes the spelling "okay", usually as the first listed spelling, hence the most common or preferred spelling. "OK" is distracting because it's in all-caps and it draws too much attention to itself. So from a style perspective, "okay" makes more sense for most situations. Of course, if you want to to have that one word stand out from the rest of the sentence, that's OK too.
- tzon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4ola kala was actually mentioned in the article towards the end when listing "manufactured" etymologies
ολα καλα - SirBotchness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4i thought it was just the short hand version of okay, but whatever.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/okay - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How I long for the carefree days when comical abbreviations were all the rage...
Gotta love this line "It first found its way into print in Boston in March of 1839 and soon became widespread among the hipper element."
I can barely imagine using the word "ok" being the sign of a hipster. - wibblewobble, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I can't remember any instance of the word 'okay' in any Shakespeare play - Please correct me if I'm wrong.
- logiik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3FTW is also for those wondering.
- Earlofnecromium, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6okie dokie
- GregoryHarbin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Only an idiot would think that OK is an abbreviation. Abbreveations are when words are shortened, and a period is added, e.g. 'Mr.'
OK is closer to being an acronym, but is actually an initialism. The difference is that acronyms can and are typically pronounced as words when said, e.g. FUBAR. Initialisms are said with the letters involved, e.g. 'E.G.,' or 'OK,' or 'WTF.' - eliezerlp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Although I had heard the cite Professor I had also heard this zero kills explanation from my uncle in the Dominican Republic (another Spanish speaking place btw).
Makes sense also. - shane, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I thought it just stood for "okay". Shows how much I know...
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