OK一an Misspelling Abbreviation

OK--拼错的缩写词

In 1839, the initials "0.K." are first published in The Boston Morning Post.Meant as an abbreviation for "o11 correct," a popular slang misspelling of "all correct" at the time, OK steadily¹ made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.

1839年，"0.K.”这个缩写第一次刊登在《波士顿早报》上。OK其实是一个常用理语词“all correct"(完全正确)的错误拼写“oll correct"的缩写，它表示的意思也是如此。一时之间，OK开始逐渐进人美国人的日常对话中。

During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger, educated circles to misspell words intentionally², then abbreviate³ them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of common words, such as "kewl" for "cool" or "DZ" for "these,”the "in crowd" of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they abbreviated⁴.Popular abbreviations included "KY"for "No use" ("know yuse")，"KG”for"No go"("Know go")，and "OW"for all right ("oli wright").

到了19世纪30年代末.在受过教育的年轻人圈子中有一个广受喜爱的做法，就是人们有意地拼错单词，然后缩写这些词，再在彼此的交谈中把这些缩写词当做理语使用。就像今天十几岁的青少年也会根据变形常用词来创造出他们自己的侄语，比如用“kewl”来指代“cool"，或者把“these”写成“DZ" 0 19世纪30年代的“潮人”们拥有一整套他们自己所缩写出的但语词。很流行的缩写包括:把“Nn use”写成“KY"( "know yuse" )，把“No go”写成“KG" ( "Know go" )，以及把“all right'，写成“OW" ("oll wright") 。

Of all the abbreviations used during that time, OK was propelled into the limelight when it was printed in the Boston Morning Post as part of a joke. Its popularity exploded when it was picked up by contemporary politicians. When the incumbent⁵ president Martin Van Buren was up for reelection, his Democratic supporters organized a band of thugs to influence voters. This group was formally called the "0.K. Club,”which referred both to Van Buren’s nickname "Old Kinderhook"(based on his hometown of Kinderhook, New York)，and to the term recently made popular in the papers. At the same time, the opposing Whig Party made use of "OK" to denigrate⁶ Van Buren’s political mentor⁷ Andrew Jackson.According to the Whigs, Jackson invented the abbreviation "OK" to coverup his own misspelling of "all correct".

在那个年代里，所有被使用的缩写词之中，OK从它作为一个笑话的一部分而被印在波士顿早报上开始才引起巨大的关注。当它被当代政客们看到、使用后，其受欢迎程度进一步增加。当时的总统马丁。范布伦在谋求连任时，他的民主党支持者们组织了一队暴徒来影响选民，而这个团伙就被正式称为“O.K. Club"，这不仅与范布伦的昵称“Old Kinderhook"〔老肯德胡克，根据他的故乡纽约肯德胡克而来)有联系，也是因为最近在报纸上很流行的这个词。同时，对立的辉格党也用OK这个词低毁范布伦的政治导师安德鲁·杰克逊。根据辉格党人的说法，杰克逊发明了“OK"这个缩写以掩饰他自己拼写“all correct”时所犯的错误。

The man responsible for unraveling the mystery behind "OK" was an American linguist⁸ named Allen Walker Read. An English professor at Columbia University, Read dispelled⁹ a host of erroneous theories on the origins of "OK,”ranging from the name of a popular Army biscuit (Orrin Kendall) to the name of a Haitian port famed for its rum (Aux Cayes) to the signature of a Choctaw chief named Old Keokuk. Whatever its origins, "OK" has become one of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of America’s greatest lingual¹⁰ exports.

负责解开“OK”背后秘密的人是一位名叫艾伦·沃克·瑞德的美国语言学家。瑞德是哥伦比亚大学的一位英语教授，他摈弃了关于"OK"，起源的一系列错误理论，广泛搜索证据。从一种流行的军旅饼干的名字(Orrin Kendall)，到一座因朗姆酒而出名的海地港口的名字(Aux Cayes)，再到一个叫Old Keokuk的乔克托族头领的签名。无论它的起源是哪一个，"OK"已经成为世界上使用最普遍的词语之一，当然它也是美国对外输出的最伟大的语言之一。