In the new show from Europe 1, "Historically yours", Stéphane Bern examines the roots of an expression of everyday life.
Wednesday, he is interested in the origin of the word "ok", used everywhere on the planet.
Stéphane Bern suggests every day, in
Historically yours
with Matthieu Noël, to discover these expressions that we use on a daily basis without necessarily knowing their origin.
Thursday, the host tells us about the origin of the word "ok".
Everywhere on the planet, we use the word "ok" to say "yes", "ok" or "everything is fine".
We find this expression in different historical periods and at different geographical points.
One of the possible origins of this expression could be found, for example, in Greece.
The expression "ola kala", which means "all is well" and whose initials form the word "ok", is commonly used there by sailors.
The expression could also come from the United States, where during the Civil War the officers responsible for reporting the results of battles wrote on registers "0 killed" to signify that there had been no casualties during the war. day.
"0 killed" would subsequently become "OK".
At the origin of the word, a spelling error?
The third hypothesis gives a French origin to the term "ok".
Before abolishing slavery, in colonialist France from the middle of the 17th to the 19th century, the shipowners of the slave trade shouted at the slaves loaded in the boats "at the quay!"
to let them know it was time to disembark.
The term "ok" would be the English phonetic transcription.
>> Find the shows of Matthieu Noël and Stéphane Bern in replay and podcast here
But the most commonly accepted origin is still different.
"Ok" would come from "oll korrect", graphic alteration of "all correct", an equivalent of "all right".
The term "ok", used everywhere in the world, would then have for origin… a spelling error.