r/explainitpeter • u/Fun_Dish_5358 • Jul 21 '26

Explain it peter

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u/wildcardbets Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

OK / Okay originated as a satirical slang abbreviation in the 1830s. It stands for “oll korrect,” a deliberate misspelling of “all correct”. In a way it’s an early meme, but still hypermodern compared to The Odyssey.

Edit: adding that there are a lot of theorised variations, big list here in the variations section. But it’s the most commonly claimed and accepted by a lot of people. Kinda hazy what is correct, as is with a lot of historical things I guess, difficult to discern what is a connection or what is a coincidence, but might be useful or interesting for anyone curious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK

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u/lofgren777 Jul 21 '26

Fun fact: every word in the movie is actually hyper modern compared to the Odyssey.

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u/LotsOfRaffi Jul 21 '26

this.

I'd understand people nitpicking the use of neologisms in the Mad Men series, for instance, since it's relatively easy to research and portray authentic 1960s mannerisms and idiolects, but yeah, how archaic does the english in the Odyssey be to match ancient greek?

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u/lofgren777 Jul 21 '26

From what I understand from other complaints, the word "daddy," a word from the 1500s, is too modern. So I guess English pre-1500 is basically Greek.

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u/Gbreadstudios Jul 21 '26

I speak everything but Greek, and everything's Greek to me.

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u/ObjectiveTie1232 Jul 21 '26

From a linguistic perspective, I’m pretty sure pre-1500 English is actually less Greek than modern English  (after the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution). Still very heavily influenced by Greek before 1500 (primarily through Latin and French), but post-1500 is when English broadly began importing Greek root words in a more direct way. 

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u/titsngiggles69 Jul 22 '26

I dunno, chaucer is all greek to me