And what about "okay"? Despite claims to the contrary in some references, nobody knows for sure the origin of this term. Some of the ones proposed more often are an abbreviation for "oll korrect" (all correct), "Old Kindherhook" (the residence of US President Martin Van Buren) and various other speculations. The OAD has serveral paragraphs on OK but refuses to get into the etymology of it. Their entry begins: "OK (also okay) exclam. used to express assent, agreement, or acceptance." Later, they include the verb: "OK's, OK'd, OK'ing). The standard abbreviation of the US state Oklahoma is OK (no dots) and people from Oklahoma are called Okies (accent on the 'O').

I believe "correct" is O.K., but that kind of word is so informal anyway, it doesn't follow strict rules! However if it is important to be "correct", write it with the dots.

@Peter: At my university (which I left some years ago), we have a professor who is an expert on African and Carribean pidgin and creole languages. He once presented a quite convincing lecture stating that "OK" actually derives from a Western African language and was brought to the USA by african slaves via the carribean islands (most slaves in the USA came from there, not directly from Africa). Sadly, I do not remeber ANY exact source to prove that, though I know that he named some. For example, there was one diary by an English "lady" reporting her slaves in the Carribean using the word "okie-dokie" as early as in the 1750's. The professor said that apparently "okie-dokie" was not derived from "OK", but the other way round, and that "okie-dokie" means "excellent" in one Western African language (Yoruba? Igbo?) It is really a shame that I can't name any sources, it was an oral presentation at the end of the term and I did not take notes. Anyway, interesting.

I'v also heared the african connection before. Okay seems OK to me.

Word History: OK is a quintessentially American term that has spread from English to many other languages. Its origin was the subject of scholarly debate for many years until Allen Walker Read showed that OK is based on a joke of sorts. OK is first recorded in 1839 but was probably in circulation before that date. During the 1830s there was a humoristic fashion in Boston newspapers to reduce a phrase to initials and supply an explanation in parentheses. Sometimes the abbreviations were misspelled to add to the humor. OK was used in March 1839 as an abbreviation for all correct, the joke being that neither the O nor the K was correct. Originally spelled with periods, this term outlived most similar abbreviations owing to its use in President Martin Van Buren's 1840 campaign for reelection. Because he was born in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and the abbreviation proved eminently suitable for political slogans. That same year, an editorial referring to the receipt of a pin with the slogan O.K. had this comment: “frightful letters... significant of the birth-place of Martin Van Buren, old Kinderhook, as also the rallying word of the Democracy of the late election, ‘all correct’.... Those who wear them should bear in mind that it will require their most strenuous exertions... to make all things O.K.”

I remember reading an article in a magazine on languages a few years ago with the a similar theory on the origins of the word OK to the one BF states in his/her posting. I can't quote any sources either. I seem to remember it saying that on the long sea journey, the African slaves, who came from many different tribes and spoke different languages, developed their common pidgin language, OK being one of the words. "Dig" and "pad" used in the colloquial sense are others.

The theory Theo refers to is explained in more detail on several websites, for example on www.uselessknowledge.com/word/ok.shtml. This page also features some quotations from the newspaper articles that are supposed to be the origin of the word. The only flaw, in my opinion, of this theory is that those newspaper quotations where the word appears first in print do not necessarily have to be the ORIGIN of the expression. To me they look more like an effort to explain an expression that was already present in spoken English. Well, I do not want to start a discussion here, most newly coined words spread for a variety of reasons, and it may well be that Old Kinderhook's campaign and the boston papers' usage of the word played a substantial role in this, too....

Re #0.