OK

OK: Definition, Synonyms and Much More From Answers.com: "

There is a Choctaw word "okeh" with the same meaning and pronunciation as American usage; Woodrow Wilson, among others, used this spelling to emphasize the Native American origins of the word. The Choctaw language was well known as a lingua franca of the frontiersmen of the early 19th Century, including eventual American Presidents Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison.

It is said that Andrew Jackson, when asked about his usage of the two letter acronym on bills, responded that OK stood for "oll korrect," a phonetic misspelling of "all correct."

The term OK has also been used in an English will and testament from 1565. It is possible that this usage originates from "oak" the tree from which British Navy ships were constructed at the time of the British colonization of North America and the subsequent War of Independence. The actor David Garrick (1717-1779) wrote the Royal Navy's song "Heart of Oak", a patriotic song celebrating naval victories of the Seven Years War (1756-1763). In Britain oak wood is a symbol of solid dependable construction. Thus it is possible to see how establishing the reliability of the vessel might involve asking if it was "oak-a?" In 2000 the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said, in the Royal Navy's "Navy News": "It is no exaggeration to say that the reputation of the Royal Navy is founded on British oak."

The term OK was also used by typesetters and people working in the publishing business. A manuscript that didn't need any changes or corrections would be marked "O.K." for Ohne Korrektur (German for "No changes"). In ancient Greece teachers would mark especially good school papers with "OK" for Ola Kala (Ολα Καλά, ΟΚ), meaning that everything is good; as a variant on that story, the Greek phrase would be used by sailors as a quick way of responding to the captain's inquiry about the condition of the ship. Another story is that it comes from the British English word hoacky (the last load of the harvest). Or the Finnish word Oikein (that's right). Or the Scottish expression och aye. Or the French aux Cayes or au quai. Or a word used in many west African languages meaning all right, yes indeed and introduced in the US via slaves.

There is an area in France called Languedoc which translates as the place where they "say OK" - or as it was "oc" meaning yes - which happens to match the Scottish (northern Gaelic?) 'och'.

A surely apocryphal account is that the term was used in U.S. military records to state that there were zero casualties or zero killed, hence 0.K., at a particular battle site.


......in case you ever wondered as i did, now you have a slighty better idea as to possibilities. but there is pages and pages of it, so follow link if u so desire. OK!