“OK” may have started as a newspaper joke

It is one of the most widely recognised words on the planet: “OK” is understood in almost any language without being translated. And everything points to it having been born as a joke.

In 1839, some Boston newspapers had a fashion for comic abbreviations spelled deliberately wrong. “OK” stood for “oll korrect”, that is, “all correct” written appallingly on purpose. It could have died like so many jokes of its day.

What saved it was the 1840 election campaign: the candidate Martin Van Buren, nicknamed “Old Kinderhook”, adopted the initials O.K. as his slogan. The joke became a slogan, and the slogan became one of the most universal words there is.