Bookends: OK, by Allan Metcalf

One of Allan Metcalf’s contentions in OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word is that the two letters have become America’s philosophy: ‘we don’t insist that everything be perfect; OK is good enough’.

One of Allan Metcalf’s contentions in OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word is that the two letters have become America’s philosophy: ‘we don’t insist that everything be perfect; OK is good enough’. It’s a pity that his book proves the point.

There are occasional snippets of interest. Modern texters shorten the word to ‘k’ (how lazy can a thumb get?), while NASA were the first to lengthen it with an initial ‘A’, seeking clarity amid radio static. Baseball pitchers sometimes employ an ‘OK’ grip, the finger position coinciding with the word in American sign language. Its popularity was boosted by the spread of the telegraph, where brevity reigned. The first ‘okay’ was in Little Women.

Essentially, though, this is an interesting magazine article stretched until it snaps. The book’s only real point is to prove — as much as these things ever can be proven — that ‘OK’ derives from the deliberately misspelt ‘oll korrect’ in a Boston newspaper article of 1839. Other supposed origins are shown to be fabrications (or ‘backronyms’), including an alleged link with ‘och aye’. The rest, to misquote Hamlet, should have been silence. Metcalfe argues that OK strikes a chord because its two components exhibit ‘ultimate roundness and ultimate angularity’. He explains, admittedly to his American audience, what stilton is. He uses a whole chapter to confirm that many modern novels employ the word ‘OK’. The small change down the back of language’s sofa can often amount to riches. Unfortunately not here. OK?