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The first time that the term appeared in the press was in a Boston newspaper, in the United States, in 1838. Other than that, everything that is known about the expression, today used to indicate that something is all correct («all right», in English), is nothing more than a hypothesis. And there are several. One of them states that the “ok” would be an attempt by the Americans to imitate, in the 18th century, the French pronunciation of the name of an excellent rum of the time, Aux Cayes.
Produced in the then colony of Haiti, the drink was so tasty that consumers gave their name to everything they considered good and perfect. Another version says that ok emerged as an abbreviation of the English expression hello correctvulgar form of writing all correctindicating, in the nautical universe, that there was nothing wrong with a vessel.
“The sailor in charge of carrying out the inspection, not finding any irregularities, said ‘OK’ and the ship set sail”, says etymologist and writer Deonísio da Silva, from the Federal University of São Carlos (Ufscar).
A third hypothesis relates the popularization of the expression to the initials of Old Kinderhook. There was born Martin von Buren, candidate of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the United States. “During the campaign, the politician used the expression as a greeting and a gesture that everything was going well with him”, says Deonísio. And everything was really ok with Martin von Buren, who won the election and was president of the USA between 1837 and 1841.
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