In 1839, a Boston editor deliberately misspelt two words as a joke. The result became famous worldwide; you won't believe how much you use it in everyday conversation

It takes only two letters to approve a plan, acknowledge a message, describe an average meal or reassure someone that everything is fine. “OK” has become so ordinary that most of us type or say it without wondering where it came from. Yet its story can be traced to a newspaper joke published nearly two centuries ago when deliberately bad spelling was fashionable. On March 23, 1839, the Boston Morning Post printed “o.k.” in a humorous piece poking fun at another newspaper. The letters represented “oll korrect”, an intentional misspelling of “all correct”. What looked like disposable 19th-century slang ultimately became one of the most recognisable expressions in the world.

When bad spelling was actually fashionable

Long before LOL, BRB and OMG entered everyday communication, young, educated Americans were having fun with abbreviations of their own. During the late 1830s, Boston newspapers embraced a craze in which familiar expressions were deliberately misspelt and then shortened. “No go”, for example, became “know go” and then “K.G.”, while “all right” became “oll wright” or “O.W.”. Most disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived. But “O.K.” was different. According to History, its earliest known printed appearance came in the Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839. Editor Charles Gordon Greene is generally credited with writing the satirical item in which it appeared. Merriam-Webster also dates the first known use of OK to 1839 and traces its etymology to the jokingly misspelt “oll korrect”.

How a presidential election gave ‘OK’ another life

The joke might have vanished with countless other slang expressions had American politics not intervened. During the 1840 presidential election, incumbent Martin Van Buren was seeking another term. Born in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was nicknamed “Old Kinderhook”.


His supporters realised that his initials conveniently produced “O.K.” and began organising “OK Clubs”. Suddenly, the expression carried two meanings: the already fashionable abbreviation and a reference to their presidential candidate. Van Buren ultimately lost the election to William Henry Harrison. But the two letters associated with his campaign survived.

For decades, 'OK' origin remained a mystery

As OK spread, competing explanations emerged. Some claimed it came from Orrin Kendall, supposedly associated with army biscuits. Others connected it with the Haitian port Aux Cayes, while another theory traced it to Native American languages. Woodrow Wilson himself favoured a Choctaw connection. The mystery persisted until linguist Allen Walker Read, a Columbia University scholar, conducted extensive research into early newspaper appearances of the expression. His work traced the crucial evidence back to the abbreviation craze of 1830s Boston and the March 23, 1839, newspaper appearance. His findings, published during the 1960s, became the foundation for the widely accepted explanation of OK's origin.

Two letters that can mean almost anything

Part of OK's extraordinary success may lie in its flexibility. Today, someone can give a proposal their “OK”, ask whether another person is “OK”, describe a film as merely “OK”, or simply reply “OK” to acknowledge a message. Merriam-Webster recognises its use as an adjective, adverb, noun and verb. Its tone can change its meaning too.

A cheerful “OK!” can express enthusiasm, while a reluctant “OK...” can communicate something entirely different. Perhaps that is the strangest part of its journey. The other deliberately misspelt abbreviations of its era largely became linguistic curiosities. OK escaped its moment. Nearly two centuries after a Boston newspaper printed a joke about “oll korrect”, billions of people need no explanation of what those two letters mean. The joke disappeared; OK became part of everyday language.