The origins of OK

OK has become a worldwide known expression in the present days. Even people who don't have any idea of English know the meaning of this term and use it very often. I'm pretty sure that almost all of you use this word more than once a day. But the question is, how many of you know about the origins of this word? Yes, what does O.K. actually stand for?

Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to this question. There is a lot of controversial stuff surrounding the birth of the term and anyone has come up with a solid explanation of the word's origins.

Some say that OK is just some kind of phonetic adaptation of a word in another language. It has been said that the term comes from the Scots expression "och aye", the Greek "ola kala" (it is good), the Chotaw Indian "oke" or "okeh" (it is so) or even the French "aux Cayes" (from Cayes, a port in Haiti with a reputation for good rum). Despite the obvious similarity between the expressions cited above and our beloved OK, there has never been any clear proof that could demonstrate this theories being true.

Another extended explanation is that OK is just an abbreviation of "Orl Korrect" , a misspelling of "All Correct" that was very current some decades ago.

It is also supposed to be a telegraphic signal meaning "open key," that is, ready to receive. Big problem with this theory: the first telegraph message was transmitted in 1844, five years after OK appeared.

However, the theory I like the most is the one that says that OK was first used in the American Civil War. That it's just one more in the huge amount of invents and new creations the wars have given to us. This theory defenses that OK stands for " 0 killed" (zero killed), a short way of saying that things hadn't gone so bad that day.

I guess we'll never get to know the truth about this whole question but it's great to realize the huge variety of weird and original hypothesis are out there.