The word OK started as a joke. A journalist for the "The Boston Morning Post" purposefully used and abbreviation of a misspelled phrase, "all korrect," according to Dennis Baron of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The word first appeared in print on March 23, 1839. "Most of the 'abracadabraisms' popular among journalists in 1839 are long gone, but OK stuck around."
Barron equates the popularity of OK with common abbreviations of today including BTW and OMG, both of which appeared in print well before Yahoo! Messenger was created. In 1917, J. A. F. Fisher wrote, "I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis-O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)-Shower it on the Admiralty!"
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