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Re: Word usage in group versus out of group.

From:FFlores <fflores@...>
Date:Saturday, May 22, 1999, 1:37
John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> 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? > > The Old Kinderhook campaign definitely gave the fad for "O.K." national > publicity, as the Democratic Party temporarily renamed itself the > "O.K. club". But the usage of "O.K." in Boston newspapers had appeared > several years before. >
I have here two more possible sources, Native American ones! One is the name of the chief (dunno which tribe) Old Keokuk, who signed peace treaties with his initials. The other's a word _okeh_, meaning "let it be so" (dunno which language). --Pablo Flores