Arnold Zwicky's Blog

We have National Grammar Day (March 4), and, more venerably, Hangul Day (October 9). And now, OK Day (March 23). From Allan Metcalf on ADS-L:

Half a century ago, Allen Walker Read proved beyond a doubt that OK was born on Saturday, March 23, 1839, on the second page of the Boston Morning Post. We all know (or should know) of his magnificent series of articles on the subject in American Speech in the 1960s, reprinted in 2002 in volume No. 86 of PADS, edited by Richard W. Bailey.

Relying on his copious material, as well as on subsequent documentation and items dredged from the Internet, I did a book on OK myself, published last fall by Oxford UP. And that gets me to this request —

Let’s celebrate the 172nd birthday of OK this year, on March 23.

How celebrate? Well, any way you want. After all, it’s OK.

If you are on Facebook, I’d appreciate it if you’d go to the page I’ve set up (link)

(where there is now a copy (very hard to read) of the Morning Post piece).

And for some discussion of the meaning/use of OK, see David Beaver’s Language Log posting here.

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