Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Word usage in group versus out of group.

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, May 22, 1999, 0:41
Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
> I remember one iteration of that on sci.lang, where someone eventually > came up with cites from 1840's US papers to show that it came from the > presidential campaign of James van Buren (I think), whose nickname was > Old Kinderhook. Has that been shown to be false?
Old Kinderhook (Martin Van Buren) certainly did boost its popularity, and ensure that it would remain. Up until that point, in fact, O.W. (oll wright) was more popular that O.K. before that point. O.K. might very well have died out as did O.W. and K.Y. (Know Yuse), among others, were it not for Van Buren's re-election campaign. -- "It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father was hanged." - Irish proverb http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-name: NikTailor