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How 'OK' took over the world (2011)
- sciolizer 9y agoThe Boston Morning Post theory is well supported, but so are a few other alternative theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK#Proposed_etymologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK#Proposed_etymologies
- spodek 9y ago> OK allows us to view a situation in simplest terms, just OK or not. I disagree. I find that OK implies some consent or agreement. In Chinese there's a word I don't know how to write but sounds something like "uh" that means more "I acknowledge" without implying agreement. Actually, I don't know if it's a word, but I hear it a lot. Whether it exists in Chinese or not, I wish English had a word more neutral than OK or uh-huh. "I acknowledge what you said" is too clunky.
- lacampbell 9y agoIn Chinese there's a word I don't know how to write but sounds something like "uh" that means more "I acknowledge" without implying agreement. Actually, I don't know if it's a word, but I hear it a lot. 嗯 ? Speaking of which, "OK嗎?" is used in mandarin a lot, at least in Taiwan.
- computator 9y agoAmusingly, Google translates it as simply "OK". Maybe because there isn't a more neutral English word for OK than OK. https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#zh-CN/en/%E5%97%AF https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#zh-CN/en/%E5%97%A...
- yongjik 9y agoAs far as I know, Google translate is broken when it comes to the word "OK", because the word is used in every website to mean "Press here if you want to continue." For example, translating OK to Korean gives me 승인, which means "approval".
- bkovitz 9y agoGoogle Translate is not good for this sort of thing, since it has no clue what words mean or why they're used. Vide: https://latin.stackexchange.com/a/4352/118 https://latin.stackexchange.com/a/4352/118
- lacampbell 9y agoYou're better off using a real dictionary for single words IME https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%97%AF https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%97%AF https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=%E5%97%AF https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=worddict&wdrst=...
- sndean 9y ago> Speaking of which, "OK嗎?" is used in mandarin a lot, at least in Taiwan. This reminds me: I've worked closely with several people born in Korea. They're the only people I've notice who say "OK..?" all the time. Asking about it, they translated it as meaning "OK, continue" or "OK, keep going." Also have noticed that essentially all they say in quick conversations on the phone talking in Korean to close relatives, is "uh"... I guess people talking on the phone in English say "OK"/"Yeah"/"Sure" a lot.
- JoshTriplett 9y agoI've encountered that from multiple cultures: ending almost every sentence with "OK". I'm curious about the origin of it.
- AstralStorm 9y agoSame as answering complex questions with yes. (whether or not you understood or agree) Aggreableness is valued in the east, as is deference to authority.
- majewsky 9y agoYou mean like how Swiss Germans are parodied as ending every statement in "..., oder?" ("..., or?")?
- Kluny 9y agoInteresting, and good to know. "Ok...?" from one of my peers would definitely be read as sarcasm, something like "I guess you want me to agree with that but I really don't" and there's an implied eyeroll. So when I've seen it from people outside my culture, I usually do a double take, think "there's no reason for them to want to be offensive here, maybe it means something else to them..." I guess just learned what it means.
- Robelius 9y agoThere was a Japanese client where I use to work that was in a meeting with my coworker. When my coworker would go into detail about how our products work, the Japanese client would nod their head up and down while saying Okay in English. My coworker would take pauses during his mini-lecture, asking "Do you understand what it's doing so far?" He would almost always respond with "No." It was pretty funny watching from the sidelines as my coworker slowly slipped into insanity because of the miscommunication. Random Edit Note: Had a class that dealt with Supply Chains in college. We had a section devoted to negotiations, including international. As a result we had to learn about various business cultures. One of the main points of that section was Western Cultures tend to have their words require little context (Their words are literal) and have focused more on Individualism. Eastern and Latin Cultures tend to have more of a Collectivism and their words rely heavily on the context of the situation (Their words are implicit).
- laurieg 9y agoThis is a really common habit with Japanese speakers of English. In Japanese acknowledging sounds know as aizuchi (相槌) are used far more frequently than in English. One common aizuchi is hai (はい) which is can be translated very literally as 'yes'. Very often I have to tell a Japanese colleague that they need to stop saying "Yes" when someone starts asking a question because they sound like they are answering it. A way to get some insight on how Japanese speakers feel is to imagine this situation: Go into a shop, buy something, hand over your change and walk out without saying a single word. Where I'm from in the UK, not saying 'thank you' would feel very impolite and wrong. Japanese people feel the same when they listen without saying "Yes" or something similar very frequently.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoWestern cultures do the same thing though, they give nods and other visual cues, go "uh huh", and if they've had a course in active listening, they'll go "I HEAR WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!". (I have a friend who had a colleague who'd do that. Very annoying but it gets the point across).
- 9y ago
- pavement 9y agoI see. (ic)
- Houshalter 9y ago"Understood" might fill that roll depending on the context. Or just "acknowledged" on it's own would be understood just fine.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- panic 9y agoHow about "got it"?
- PKop 9y agoFrom military lingo: "Roger" meaning "Received and understood"... exactly what you're looking for "I acknowledge what you said". Sometimes used as "Roger that" I learned this in the army and still use often in conversation or text.
- jghn 9y agoExcept that colloquially it seems to be used basically like ok, particularly with the roger that
- muraiki 9y agoI worked a job where I would use roger in this sense. After I put in my 2 week's notice, a coworker told me that this actually annoyed my boss to no end. We used IRC extensively for communications, so I wrote an IRC bot that would reply "roger" to everything he said (along with some other sayings that annoyed him) and cron'd it to run a week after I had left.* * The rest of the story is that I wrote two bots to say different things, but forgot that they'd trigger "roger" off of each other, so the end result is that I had two bots constantly spamming the channel with "roger". I guess I should have written tests!
- dctoedt 9y agoIIRC, "Roger" came about in the early days of voice-radio communication as the old-style phonetic alphabet version of "R" (in the modern phonetic alphabet, "R" would be "Romeo") ; the single letter R was a "prosign" abbreviation used in Morse-code telegraphy (as • — • or dot-dash-dot) to indicate "received and understood." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code_abbreviations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code_abbreviations
- chiph 9y agoI can't help but think of the battle droids in the (mythical) Star Wars prequels. Roger Roger. And now you'll be thinking that all day. Sorry.
- madcaptenor 9y agoBut then what happens when you hire someone named Roger?
- JoshTriplett 9y ago> I wish English had a word more neutral than OK or uh-huh. "I acknowledge what you said" is too clunky. "Got it" works well for that, in almost any context. As long as you have enough context for it to come across the right way, "noted" can work too. Doesn't imply agreement, just acknowledgement.
- majewsky 9y agoMy boss uses "understood" heavily for that purpose.
- nihonde 9y agoI use it all the time, and wakatta or wakarimashita in Japanese, too.
- reconbot 9y ago"Alright" works pretty well for me. It probably falls into the same bucket as "OK" however. Tone and context keep it out of the affirmative. "I hear you" gets thrown around a lot but if someone is looking for an answer it infuriates them in a way that "Alright" doesn't.
- skookumchuck 9y ago'Ack' works for me.
- _0ffh 9y agoI've been using ACK and NAK with friends, but I'm not sure we can get the non computer scientists on board...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- protomyth 9y agoYou'd probably be surprised it also works with some older workers who were at companies that had to pay per character on the old teletype. Often, those companies had abbreviation lists and two I worked with had ACK on them. It also provided an interesting insight into what words were very important in their business communications.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sthrs 9y ago10-4
- qubex 9y agoThere exists a word for that in English too... I use ’acknowledged’. ;)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mac01021 9y agoI believe mainlanders normally spell it "en".
- type0 9y agohow many languages have their own spelling? i.e like this Finish spelling: okei Swedish spelling: okej Russian spelling: окей
- Cerium 9y agoFyi, that word is "en" written as 嗯. On internet chat it is usually repeated, 嗯嗯, and Chinese chat clients have emoticons for it.
- nix0n 9y agoI say "go on", usually with a nod, for this.
- styfle 9y agoI use the "white-heavy-check-mark" emoji in text or slack chat to acknowledge without agreeing http://emojipedia.org/white-heavy-check-mark/ http://emojipedia.org/white-heavy-check-mark/
- ValentineC 9y ago> In Chinese there's a word I don't know how to write but sounds something like "uh" that means more "I acknowledge" without implying agreement. Actually, I don't know if it's a word, but I hear it a lot. > Whether it exists in Chinese or not, I wish English had a word more neutral than OK or uh-huh. "I acknowledge what you said" is too clunky. Not exactly Chinese, but colloquial Singapore English (Singlish) has a word "orh" [1] which sounds like what you might be looking for. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish_vocabulary#O https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish_vocabulary#O
- 520794 9y agoI always liked OK> as a prompt, e.g., on a bootloader.
- AstralStorm 9y agoModify it to say: YAY> We booted and are live!
- stolk 9y agoIn French, "au quai" means "in the harbour." Cargo in the harbour, is not lost at sea, or in transit. Instead it is safe and sound, or O.K.
- manarth 9y agoThe "au quai" etymology isn't universally accepted, and isn't recognised by the Academie Française, who don't concede its use. Generally, people use "d'accord" (sometimes shortened to "d'ac") over "OK" in French.
- tripa 9y agoI can understand that the etymology is disputed, but what does the modern French expression of agreement have to do with it? For all I know, it's entirely possible a misunderstanding/reappropriation of a foreign phrase could be it.
- hamandcheese 9y agoI much prefer and almost always write "okay" vs "ok", and I feel like most of my friends do the same. I wonder if it's a generational thing. I and most of my friends are early-mid 20s.
- extr 9y agoI agree and am in a similar demo. I think I just as often use "kk" but I'm not able to place exactly where I picked this up from or what it's origins are. UrbanDictionary claims it's internet slang for "okay, cool" == "k, kool" == "kk" which seems believable. It actually hadn't struck me until writing this comment that "kk" was internet specific slang, and thinking about it it's something I don't really see from most people.
- lucb1e 9y agoSidenote: kk is what teens here use a lot to swear with cancer (which is spelled with two 'k's instead of 'c's in Dutch). For some reason many people take big offense, but other illnesses are perfectly fine to them. I've heard people take such offense over what was meant to sound affirmative. I always cringe at the potential reactions when seeing kk somewhere.
- kqr 9y ago> For some reason many people take big offense, but other illnesses are perfectly fine to them. Not the case at all! Dutch use a diverse set of illnesses as profanity. It's just that the big C (or should I say K?) happens to be one of the most severe profanities.
- tokenizerrr 9y agoAlso dutch, and while kk can mean kanker (cancer) in chats its often used as just 'ok ok'. Though I did have an awkward incident once where someone thought 'kk' meant cancer and they got very upset.
- pavement 9y ago
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoI'm learning hindi (slowly) and there it's "teek hai", which to me always sounds like T-K, and always makes me want to laugh a little.
- pritambaral 9y agoTechnically, it's "theek hai", like in "eighth"; and not "teek hai" like in "eight". Would it still sound close enough to "T-K" to sound funny to you?
- cat199 9y agoJust do the head bobble.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_bobble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_bobble
- triangleman 9y agoNot at all used in Brazil from what I can tell. I told a fruit vendor after tasting his wares "it's ok" and he though I said "shocking" which apparently has a portuguese cognate. Thankfully the thumbs up gesture is pretty pervasive there.
- ribfeast 9y agoYou'd say "ta bom"
- drewmol 9y agoMy experience both in US high school and college English classes was that 'okey/okay' is taught as a proper American English word, universally accepted as synonymous with 'alright', 'OK' being a contraction/slang. Interesting to read this may not be the case.
- nkrisc 9y agoInteresting, I've never seen it spelled 'okey' until now.
- peterquest 9y agoI'm curious as to how it was adopted by countries for which English is not the primary language. I remember being surprised when I heard Parisians using it regularly in their speech.
- restalis 9y agoFor one, it's an easy pick for someone with a cosmopolitan spirit. Then there's also a lot of gadgets or software that come with the untranslated "ok" which serves as a pushing base for all but the most aware and opposed to the adoption of foreign words.
- iiv 9y ago>Then there's also a lot of gadgets or software that come with the untranslated "ok" The word has been used a long time before gadgets and software became common here in Sweden. I would guess it comes from films and tv-programs.
- cat199 9y agoHave heard somewhere else this was widely spread in WWII era or thereabouts since it was good for radio communications and there were many USians around
- chiph 9y agoI heard it got picked up from US soldiers during WW-II.
- Kluny 9y agoIt's used in Denmark, but "k" is pronounced "ko" (like co in co-working) here, so they, especially older ones, say "oh-ko!"
- KozmoNau7 9y ago"Oh-ko" makes the vowels long, but the vowels should be short, almost clipped. In IPA notation "ko" would be /kʰɔ/, I think.
- lunchladydoris 9y agoThe origin of the term has been embedded in my memory (right next to Ben Stein's description of Voodoo Economics) since I first heard it in the 1987 Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron father-son switcheroo classic Like Father Like Son.
- sharpercoder 9y agoI notice a trend in my environments where an acknowledgement went from "okee" (Dutch) or "okay" to "OK"/"ok" to now just "k".
- jeffhuys 9y agoI don't see any change in my env, people still say "okee" in text to me. Sometimes "ok", but never "okay" (the English one)
- tomsmeding 9y agoMy experience (Dutch-born student in NL) is that "k" sounds sort-of less interested than "ok" or any longer variety, even in spoken Dutch ("k" is actually a used word in my environment). It seems that "k" corresponds to "fine"/"acknowledged" while things like "ok" or "oke" (yes my friends spell it like that, probably being too lazy to type é) correspond to "yes"/"agreed"/"acknowledged". I wrote "acknowledged" in both categories because they both acknowledge something, and sometimes the meanings do get muddled. :)
- ngrilly 9y agoI read a paper a few years ago telling a different story about OK having evolved from the abbreviation 0K for "zero killings", used during World War II. Anyone heard about that?
- bikamonki 9y agoI've read that too. Myth busted I guess.
- zmix 9y agoI always thought it was the opposite of K.O.
- yakshaving_jgt 9y agoI was hoping this guy took over the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obgnr9pc820 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obgnr9pc820
- dnh44 9y agoWith it's roots in the age of the telegraph, it would appear that OK is a distant predecessor to other abbreviations of convenience such as LOL.