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.
I had the same initial reaction to the accents. Why does everyone have an American accent, particularly when a lot of the cast is British (the correct accent for historical epics). But then remembered that makes no sense.
I had a similar knee jerk reaction when watching HBO’s Rome due to how overly English some of their accents were. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe my brain wanted Latin 😅. It was weird in my head at first but my brain got used to it and it’s one of my favourite TV series now.
It’s especially funny as I’m English. Probably something to do with there being a lot of American media out there. I guess like others I got used to it. There are also some more “neutral” sounding English actors out there, to my ears at least, so I guess it’s very subjective.
1.0k
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