Re: [Bodington-developers] Aaarggh!

[Jon M. <jo...@te...>]

Them's fightin' words!

O.K. is an abbreviation of 'oll korrect', deriving from a fashion for 
silly abbreviations arising in Boston and New York in 1838 and 1839 and 
including things like K.G. for (k)no(w) go which didn't catch on quite 
as well.

Use as an indication of approval started in 1841from 'Old Kinderhook' a 
nickname for Martin van Buren and adopted by his supporters in the 
'O.K.[sic] Club', a Democratic club in New York. Kinderhook was the 
native town of van Buren. In effect O.K. became a non-religious synonym 
for amen.

True acronyms such as SUN (the computer manufacturer) which are 
pronounced as if they are words are best presented without full stops 
because as words they are no longer abbreviations. However abbreviations 
like I.B.M. (not an acronym unless you pronounce it ibum) ought to be 
written with full stops because they are are pronounced using the names 
of the letters. This is in effect the purpose of the full stop: it 
indicates that the preceding letter is to be pronounced using the name 
of the letter. S.U.N is pronounced ess-yoo-en but SUN is pronounced sun. 
Of course graphic designers don't like to put punctuation into logos and 
then people copy that practice in plain text. OK implies a single 
syllable pronunciation like ock whereas the original spelling of the 
word was okey, later changed to okay.

I wonder how long we can keep this thread going?

References
Read, Walker  American Speech 38:1,2(1963) & 39:1,2,4(1964)


Andrew Booth wrote:

>Eats, shoots - and leaves.
>
>BTW I've removed every occurrence of 'O.K.' from Bodington HEAD and
>corrected all instances of 'occured'.
>
>Aggie
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: bod...@li...
>[mailto:bod...@li...] On Behalf Of Sean
>Mehan
>Sent: 07 April 2006 16:37
>To: bod...@li...
>Subject: Re: [Bodington-developers] Aaarggh!
>
>my pet beefs:
>
>
>1) people who are always uncertain what to do about clauses of all
>sorts - such that they always stick in hyphens - when they are writing.
>We all know that hyphens are signs of intelligence - intelligence
>being evidenced by your writing skills.
>
>2) Incorrect use of abbreviations http://www.weblogs.uhi.ac.uk/
>sm00sm/?p=110
>
>
>On 7 Apr 2006, at 16:25, Alistair Young wrote:
>
>  
>
>>and the damn apostrophe as the plural - gaaaaaaargh!
>>
>>On 7 Apr 2006, at 16:04, Peter Crowther wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>From: Andrew Booth
>>>>Have a look at one of the best books ever written - its
>>>>author was very
>>>>clear about the need for its creation as it's sorely needed.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Ah, but that's only too variations, and there are to many versions of
>>>to/too/two two count...
>>>
>>>		- Peter
>>>
>>>
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