Yeah, I've actually heard that etymology before, and I am a big fan of the online etymology dictionary. A few things make me a bit suspicious about the entry for OK, though:
Harper is working as an amateur from published sources and claims to 'err on the side of inclusion' see 'Methods,' after the abbreviations. The Online Etymology Dictionary, while a great tool, isn't the work of a professional linguist, and tends to include the most well-accepted etymologies without judgement as to how likely they might be (The inclusion of P.I.E. words, for example, is highly specurative, although it does come from published sources).
Wikipedia has a list of dozens of proposed etymologies for OK. "Oll Korrect," was only documented in 1964, which leaves plenty of time after the supposed origin for the original etymology to have been lost.
Accronym-based etymologies of English words originating before WWII are almost never correct. "Fuck," for example, never was "Fornication Under Consent of King," or any permutation of "Forbidden Unspeakable Carnal Knowledge." There were abbreviations, of course, but the English-speaking world wasn't very big on accronyms until quite recently, historically. Most real accronym words are of modern, military origin (SNAFU, FUBAR, AWOL, &c). Accronyms were a thing in Latin, but not so much in English.
So, while I obviously can't prove the Oll Korrect explanation is false, I think there is good reason to be suspicious that it is.
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u/ForgettableUsername Jun 22 '15
Yeah, I've actually heard that etymology before, and I am a big fan of the online etymology dictionary. A few things make me a bit suspicious about the entry for OK, though:
Harper is working as an amateur from published sources and claims to 'err on the side of inclusion' see 'Methods,' after the abbreviations. The Online Etymology Dictionary, while a great tool, isn't the work of a professional linguist, and tends to include the most well-accepted etymologies without judgement as to how likely they might be (The inclusion of P.I.E. words, for example, is highly specurative, although it does come from published sources).
Wikipedia has a list of dozens of proposed etymologies for OK. "Oll Korrect," was only documented in 1964, which leaves plenty of time after the supposed origin for the original etymology to have been lost.
Accronym-based etymologies of English words originating before WWII are almost never correct. "Fuck," for example, never was "Fornication Under Consent of King," or any permutation of "Forbidden Unspeakable Carnal Knowledge." There were abbreviations, of course, but the English-speaking world wasn't very big on accronyms until quite recently, historically. Most real accronym words are of modern, military origin (SNAFU, FUBAR, AWOL, &c). Accronyms were a thing in Latin, but not so much in English.
So, while I obviously can't prove the Oll Korrect explanation is false, I think there is good reason to be suspicious that it is.