OK, O.K, Okay, o-k, ok, etc...?

On earlier versions of Microsoft Word, it always told me OK was the proper way, but it can either be OK or okay now. I've looked it up; it once bother me so bad because I kept getting corrected on Microsoft Word.

The Guardian says OK is OK, okay is not. OK is what I use, no stops, okay is just spelling out the sounds, which isn't really necessary.

I never use anything but "okay," especially in fiction that I'm submitting for publication, as well as in business correspondence.

"OK" bugs me because it stands out too much on the page. Also, it's the postal code for Oklahoma. Despite this, it's still noted as being an acceptable alternative to "okay" in some style guides.

I always take notice of which version is used in the books I read. I find that about 75% of books I read use "okay," while the others use "OK." It'll never look right to me, but I guess I can deal with it.

NaNo '06 - The Center of Gravity. 7 drafts since '06. Revising for editor!
NaNo '07 - Notes From Nowhere (YA novel, 50K)
NaNo '08 - Rob's Day Out! (YA caper)

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Okay is probably best. Don't spell it ok. One of my classmates always hated that. He said he wanted to have an ogre in an RPG named Ok (pronounced like auk). O.K. -- almost no one knows what it stands for anyway. OK -- yeah, that's Oklahoma.

"Be nice to the imaginary people. Don't kill too many." -- e-mail from my youngest sister, June 23, 2008

Personally, I prefer "okay" to any other form and I've used that form for quite a few years now.

NaNo 2006: The Clearing of Lindsey (psychological thriller/drama/whatever)
NaNo 2007: ZOMBUNNIE! (satirical horror)
NaNo 2008: Sunny Side Up (romantic comedy drama thing)

It was originally written "o.k." (yes, lowercase and all), but "okay" is the most acceptable form these days. No one really thinks of them as standing for anything anymore.

I've always thought it was 'okay' myself.

I do not know beneath what sky nor on what seas shall be thy fate.
I only know it shall be high; I only know it shall be great.

well, O.K. was originally British slang for 'all correct' but sense those crazy teenagers had to try to be rebels they spelled it 'oll korrect' (yes, I know shit like this) I personally think that 'okay' looks the best and flows better but sense no word processor I've ever been on counts that as a word I usually end up spelling it differently every time I use it -.-

I always use "okay". "OK" etc just look jarring to me, and while I know they're technically "correct" alternatives, they break the flow of the text for me.

Title: Breaking Light
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Sanity level: Do you even need to ask?

I always use okay. It looks better when reading. When I do see it as 'ok' in books it's a bit jarring to me. I don't recall seeing OK recently or O.K. either.

When I heard that one, it was young Bostonian socialites at the turn of the century. Or maybe it was from crates of rum from the Caribbean stamped "Aux Cayes". Or maybe Orrins-Kendall crackers, a both prestigious brands.

The closest we have to an actual origin is that Martin van Buren was known a "Old Kinderhook" after his birthplace, and his election campaign was known as the "Democratic OK club", but the sources from the time suggest that "OK" was already known.

I'd say that any of "okay", "OK" and "O.K." are acceptable but since no-one really knows where it came from or what it stood for, if anything, then no-one really knows which of them is "rightest".

For a while in the 1930s, there was a theory going around that it was related to the Choctaw word "okeh", and I've seen some books published in the 1930s that spelled it "okeh" throughout. Drove me up the wall.

If you can fly a Sopwith Camel, you can fly anything.

_______
If you can fly a Sopwith Camel, you can fly anything.

The first time it was ever printed was in a rather informal section of a Boston newspaper, where it was written as "o.k. (oll korrect)."

This, combined with a New England slang fad of using abbreviations, suggests this as the origin of the term.

From Boston, it spread out across the US.

It didn't really catch on across the pond until, I think, World War I, when the American soldiers imported it.

I prefer Ok or Okay. I have no idea which, if any, is correct.

I personally use and like Okay or Ok.

For some reason I don't like to use it that much. I tend to use "all right" ("alright" isn't actually a word). But when I do...I think I go with the probably incorrect "Ok" or "ok" depending on if it's at the beginning of a sentence or not.

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Of course "alright" is a word: it gets 60 million hits in google and appears in all the major dictionaries such as the OED, which calls it "a frequent spelling of 'all right'". Sure, it's considered non-standard, but it's been around almost as long as "all right" and doesn't look like disappearing.

2007: 28,513 words
2005: 50,916 words
2003: 12,078 words

It's OK in AP style, which is what I usually write in since that's what I deal with professionally.

The etymology of the word is below:
1839, only survivor of a slang fad in Boston and New York c.1838-9 for abbreviations of common phrases with deliberate, jocular misspellings (cf. K.G. for "no go," as if spelled "know go"); in this case, "oll korrect." Further popularized by use as an election slogan by the O.K. Club, New York boosters of Democratic president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid, in allusion to his nickname Old Kinderhook, from his birth in the N.Y. village of Kinderhook. Van Buren lost, the word stuck, in part because it filled a need for a quick way to write an approval on a document, bill, etc. The noun is first attested 1841; the verb 1888. Spelled out as okeh, 1919, by Woodrow Wilson, on assumption that it represented Choctaw okeh "it is so" (a theory which lacks historical documentation); this was ousted quickly by okay after the appearance of that form in 1929. Okey-doke is student slang first attested 1932. Greek immigrants to America who returned home early 20c. having picked up U.S. speech mannerisms were known in Greece as okay-boys, among other things.

I'm not sure if that is where it orginated or not. I've read other places that t comes from the term Kopacetic using the first two letters reversed instead of KO it was OK.
Copasetic, also spelled copacetic, copesetic or - less commonly - kopasetic, means very satisfactory or acceptable.

I would believe the former over the latter however.

I don't use Ok in my writing. I use fine or it's all good or acceptable or any other affirmative including affirmative. I'm not sure why I have an aversion to ok but I do.

I prefer okay.

My editor switched all of mine to okay.

For what it's worth.

Just write it how you want until you have a an editor tell you different. Now I'll do it her way. Doesn't matter to me.

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Vivian Arend

Where Dreams Become Reality
http://vivarend.blogspot.com/
http://vivianarend.com

I spell it is Okay. For some reason, OK looks kind of kiddish to me and it just jars when it's on the page. I'm not sure what everyone else uses, but I'll keep using okay.

Named Characters Introduced: 13
Named Characters Killed: 5
Highest Daily Word Count: 12,139
Word Count: 53,452

I spell it "okay"; using capital letters or redundant pseudo-abbreviations seems childish and contradictory, as "okay" is such an indifferent, rather neutral expression.

OK has its place:

Graffiti like "Fred Rulez OK" would just look stupid written "okay".

In prose, either work, though I prefer "okay" in most cases, except for gesturing: "he signalled OK" feels more correct, to me, for some reason.

In speech, always "okay".

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And I thought the term OK came from 0 kill in times of war. All is good when you have no casualties, right? xP

Personally I use okay instead of the other variations. That's because okay looks more of a word, and OK and O.K. and stuff look like abbreviations to me.

And I dislike too many abbreviations in my story (it's all medieval fantasy so no organisation name abbreviation!).

I'm picky. o_o

A random writer?

Well, modern slang like "okay" doesn't really have a place in any archaic tale anyway, does it?

Better to say "I'm fine", "I'll live", or "T'is not so wide as a church door, nor so deep as a well, but t'will do... t'will suffice", rather than "I'm OK".

Even stuff that's ancient, like "hey, man," feels modern because it's only survived in the US: it's died out in the UK, and made a resurgence from the 60s onwards.

Lots of other Americanisms are in fact archaic Britishisms (which is always a nice comeback to those who claim the Americans ruined the language), but they all, because of their lack of use in the UK, feel like neologisms.

Buddies welcome, scripts discussed, etc :)

^ This
Ever since I started writing for newspapers, OK is the only style I can stand anymore. It's just one of those niche things that bugs me to no end, like people using "over" to quantify when "more than" is more correct.

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Correct in the eyes of grumpy old prescriptivists who can't offer any coherent reason for their quaint little prejudices. :p To quote Merriam-Webster, 'over in the sense of "more than" has been used in English since the 14th century.... There is no reason why you need to avoid this usage'.
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2007: 28,513 words
2005: 50,916 words
2003: 12,078 words

2007: 28,513 words
2005: 50,916 words
2003: 12,078 words

I use "okay"; most other forms often don't flow right in writing. I may someday discover a character that flatly insists it be put down some other way in all their dialogue or what not, and on that day you will find me worrying it over like a dog at a bone. :P

NaNo'04: {Title lost} Fail.
NaNo'06: Dreamspinner - Fail.
NaNo'07: The Hole in the World - Win. :D
Screnzy!08: {untitled} Fail.
NaNo'08: The Silver Stone - Win!
Screnzy!09: TBA

I can't stand any form other than "okay." It makes it a "real word," so to speak.

Although I know that "OK" is technically more correct, I vastly prefer "okay." Whenever I see "OK" written, my brain insists that it must be pronounced in a long, drawn out "Oooooh-KAY!" (sometimes with accompanying thumbs-up-and-wink, a la Buddy Jesus) which makes me twitchy.

NaNo '08 - Swashbuckling for Love and Profit
A pirate. A ninja. A forbidden love that could change the course of human history.