This Day in History:, 'Ok' Enters National Vernacular.
March 23, 1839.
The initials saw their
first publication in the
Boston Morning Post as part of a joke.
The initials stood for "oll korrect.".
The phrase was a popular
slang for the term "all correct.".
As with modern youth culture, circles of young,
educated people in the 1830s came up with slang
misspellings and used abbreviated versions of the terms.
"O.K." got picked up by politicians of the time,
whose use of the term propelled
it into the American vernacular.
Today, "O.K." is ubiquitous
all over the world