For Christmas this past year, my mom got me a desktop calendar called "The Word Origin Calendar." Every day it provides me with the origin of a word or a phrase, and it's been very interesting thus far. This one was of particular interest, as I'd never heard it before, and I thought y'all (all, what, three of my readers) might be interested as well.
"okay, O.K. • Efforts have been made to trace this term to an African original, okeh, but this all-American term comes from President Martin Van Buren, who served from 1837 to 1841. He approved documents with the initials 'O.K.,' which stood for his nickname, Old Kinderhook, after the New York town where he was born."
Fascinating! I'll have to keep this in mind for the next useless fact competition that comes up at work....
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2 comments:
You have useless fact competitions at work?? I want to work at Rauxa, too!
That's really interesting, though . . . perhaps I should start saying "Old Kinderhook" instead of "ok" and see what people do.
OK, that's cool.
Does your work really have that competition?
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