I'm Ok, You're Ok.

Everywhere we go, we hear a two-letter word. OK is possibly the most well-known word on the earth. It's critical to how we communicate with one another and with technology.

You probably utilize it every day, even if you aren't aware of it. But what exactly does OK mean?

And how did it get there? OK is derived from an 1830s craze of purposefully misspelling abbreviations.

Boston's young "intellectual" types thrilled those "in the know" with mangled coded messages like KC, or "knuff ced," KY, "know yuse," and OW, "oll wright." But, thanks to a number of fortunate breaks, one abbreviation stood out above the rest: OK, or "oll korrect."

"All correct" was a typical term used in the early 1800s to affirm that everything was in order.

When OK was originally published on March 23, 1839, its shortened cousin entered the mainstream. The Boston Morning Post published this article. Other newspapers quickly caught up on the joke and spread it around the country, until OK was known to everyone, not just a few Boston insiders. And OK's unexpected popularity caused a flailing US president from Kinderhook, New York, to issue an apology. To use it as a moniker during his reelection campaign in 1840. Van Buren's followers established OK Clubs across the country, and their message was simple.

It was obvious that Old Kinderhook was "oll korrect." The campaign was well reported and received negative news coverage. His opponents eventually used the term against him, claiming it stood for "Orful Konspiracy" or "Orful Katastrophe." Even a creative nickname couldn't save Van Buren's presidency in the end. But it was a victory for OK.

That 1840 presidential campaign cemented OK in the American lexicon.

While similar abbreviations went out of favor, OK made the transition from slang to legal, functional use because of a single invention: the telegraph.

The current flows to the sounder when we lower the bridge. The current at the other end energizes an electromagnet, which attracts the armature. The armature taps out a message after clicking down against a screw. The telegraph first appeared in 1844, only five years after OK.

It sent short messages in the form of electric pulses with dot combinations and dashes to represent letters of the alphabet. This was OK's opportunity to shine. The two letters were simple to write and unlikely to be confused with anything else. It quickly became a customary acknowledgement of a received signal, particularly among operators on the booming US railroad.

This 1865 telegraphic manual even states that "no message is ever regarded as transmitted until the office receiving it gives O K." OK had become a severe matter. There's another important reason the two letters survived, and it's not simply because they're simple to transmit. It has something to do with how OK seems. Or, more precisely, how the letter K appears and sounds. In English, starting a word with the letter K is quite rare; it ranks roughly 22nd in the alphabet.

That rarity sparked a "Kraze for K" in advertising and print around the turn of the century, with corporations replacing hard Cs with Ks to catch your eye. The concept was that by changing the spelling of a word, such as Klear Flax Linen Rugs or this Kook-Rite Stove, For example, highlighting it would call greater attention to it. That remains a visual strategy: K appears in current corporate logos such as Krispy-Kreme and Kool-Aid. The K is what makes it memorable.

By the 1890s, OK's Bostonian beginnings were mostly forgotten, and newspapers began to appear. To argue about its history, often propagating misconceptions that some people still believe. For example, the notion that it is derived from the Choctaw word 'okeh,' which means so it is.'Choctaw said OK to us...

The origins of OK had grown mysterious, but it didn't really matter because the word had become buried in our vocabulary. It is now the ultimate "neutral affirmative."OK's canonical history, written by Allan Metcalf, notes that the term "affirms without evaluating," which means it doesn't transmit any feelings - it simply acknowledges and accepts information.

If you "got home OK," it just implies you were not hurt. If your "food was OK," it was sufficient. And "OK" indicates a change in plans.

It's almost reflexive at this point, and we don't even keep track of how much we use it. That's why OK was perhaps the first word pronounced by mankind when they landed on the moon.