All those who pose as experts in etymology tend to receive questions about certain popular words, with exotic slang and obscenities attracting the greatest attention. (The F-word is at the top of the list. Is it an acronym? No, it is not.) Beginning with my old post on copasetic, I tried to anticipate some such questions, and for a long time I have been wondering how to tell the story of OK, an object of undying interest. The excitement of this oft-repeated story has long since worn off, and only the thought that perhaps I can add nuance (as highbrows say) to the OK epic and thus partly avoid the otherwise inevitable triviality allows me to continue.
The Eternal Fascination of OK
No comments:
Post a Comment