Talk:Okay

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[edit] Africa

The Africa references, & slave references, should have a segmented section,...:


However, and importantly for one candidate etymology, earlier documented examples exist of Africans in America using phonetically identical or strikingly similar words in a similar sense to okay. A Jamaican planter's diary of 1816 records a "Negro" as saying:

"Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him."< ref >≈David Dalby (Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, U of London). (1971) "The Etymology of O.K.", The Times, 14 January 1971 < / ref >

And in 1784:

"Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe;..." < ref>J. F. D. Smyth. (1784) A Tour in the United States of America (London, 1784), 1 : 118-21


There had been a Radio Shack employee, Vermont Av., Koreatown-Westlake-Hollywood, named Okey, rather than Okay, of Africa.

Thank You,

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 03:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

1/ The earlier Chronologically-organised discussion embeds "the Africa references" in a logical context for the discussion. However, the later Etymologically-organised discussion does have a separate section for them.
2/ Radio Shack's Mr Okey might have (had?) a very similar name but he came along about 200 years after the earliest recorded American uses of the word. I'm sure he would agree he probably had little to do with the etymology of the word Okay, which is the topic of the article.  ;) Saltation (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Accepted" section confusing

Section 1.2 Accepted is currently rather hard to read. It starts out with what seems to be a quote without explaining it is, and continues with "Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print:" which isn't even grammatical unless "Read" is taken as the name of Allen Walker Read, who is not introduced until the next section. I'm reverting the edit (which was just a removal of the first paragraph of the section with no explanation whatsoever) that seems to be the cause of this confusion. 130.89.228.82 (talk) 17:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I saw last week the important introductory para had been deleted over Christmas --simple vandalism-- but wasn't able to fix it until tonight. Most gratifying to see someone had beaten me to it. Saltation (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Has anyone else noticed that most of the significant (lasting) damage done by Trolls and EgoPriests on Wikipedia, warping articles to the point they are borken, confusing, or nominated for deletion, is achieved by simply Deleting text they object to? That is, if they see something they feel is not perfect, rather than trying to make it better while still preserving its contribution to the article, they simply click in, delete it, and move on, leaving a damaged article behind them. Typically, the edit is commented with great self-righteousness: a "chilling effect" for those coming after wondering if they should contribute to fix apparent lacunae.
It's a form of parasitism (deceit-masked): acquiring status or ego-strokes by destroying other people's contributions instead of themselves contributing, but claiming that the destruction IS contribution. We need a neat word for this sort of behaviour. Labels are useful. Any ideas? Saltation (talk) 19:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] au quay

Somehow the term of French sailors "au quai", it's now on the quay, has been lost. --Alex1011 (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

fixed. Saltation (talk) 02:19, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slang, Yo

I would not consider "okay" to be slang, but rather colloquialism. World Book encyclopedia seems to support my view in their article on slang. All thoughts are welcome.--Supernerd 10 (talk) 21:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC) P.S. I apologize if I'm splitting hairs, as I have a tendency to do so.

[edit] This article uses "Typographers' quotations" in some places - needs fixing.

According to the Wikipedia manual of style, the article should use "Logical quotations". Can someone please fix this - I haven't got time. Thanks!

[edit] Spelling of "emphasises"

Some people keep insisting on changing "emphasises" to "emphasizes" (or worse, "emphasize" which is bad grammar), in the Oll Korrect section. The Manual of Style dictates that the ORIGINAL style of spelling should be kept. I'm not going to keep reverting it to how it was, only to have people change it back again, so I thought I'd just note it here.

If you check old revisions by e.g. Cluebot and Quintote, you'll see that the original spelling of the word was "emphasises". Thanks. 90.205.80.229 (talk) 00:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In the context of an article otherwise written in American English, “emphasise” is of course a misspelling. One does not preserve misspellings nor otherwise leave an article using a mixture of American and British English simply because some earlier editor erred. —SlamDiego←T 00:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
SlamDiego is completely correct. According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English, a particular article should normally use all AE or all BE (or, in some cases, another variety). The rule about not changing from one variety to another doesn't mean that the first spelling of a particular word must be preserved, because that would violate the requirement of uniform spelling within an article. Rather, the rule means that, if the article has no strong connection to any particular English-speaking country, then the first national variety used in the article should be adhered to consistently thereafter.
The rule against change doesn't apply here, anyway. The article is about an expression that entered English through American speakers, so it should be in AE. In the article about Bob's your uncle, I didn't notice any points of divergence, but if someone sneaks in a "center" or "honor", the BE version should be substituted. JamesMLane t c 03:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Your second point surely bore statement here, but I would note that it had to some extent already been made it on this editor's talk page. —SlamDiego←T 04:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


Rather more importantly, you edited a quotation. That is NEVER appropriate, regardless of whichever style you prefer. Saltation (talk) 02:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

I had heard that the "Zero Killed" was used, not during World War II, but during the American Civil War, which would be much more plausible. However, I'm not quite sure of that. Can anyone confirm or infirm it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.219.195.246 (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we need reliable sources. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
88.219.195.246 (catchy name): If you read the very next line in the article, you will find confirmation of what you've heard
SqueakBox: If you read the very next line in the article, you will find not only confirmation of the story but also a reference to the primary academic source for the etymology of OK, the result of over 20 years exhaustive study and widely regarded as landmark research into OK's etymology. Most people would regard this as sufficiently reliable. Saltation (talk) 02:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OED

The section allegedly from the OED bears no resemblance to what the OED actually has to say about OK. Kokiri (talk)

[edit] Scots?

I'm surprised that there's no reference to the Scots expression och aye, an exclamation generally translated as "yes." Misterdoe (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

There is precisely such a reference, actually.
>An author in the Nottingham Journal in 1943 suggests that OK is simply an adaptation of the old Scottish expression: och aye. The Scottish expression derives from och, meaning an exclamation of surprise and aye meaning yes, and has been in existence since perhaps the 16th century.
Saltation (talk) 21:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)