"O.K." AND ITS ORIGIN

Evening Star, Issue 16824, 28 August 1918, Page 7

"0.K." AND ITS ORIGIN

In the Philadelphia 'Saturday Evening Post' a character sketch of President Wilson by Mr' David Lawrence issentitled ' Okeh W. W. ' nnd supplies what is' stated to be an explanation of tiie abbreviation "0.K." "•Mr Wilson's -methods," says the writer, " sue novel." Secretaries and Attaches at the executive offices testify to Mr Wilson's originality. They found him unlike his predecessors from the very day he sent back to them the first memorandum which they had submitted to him, on which he wrote in pencil the curious phrase, "Okch W.W." After other memoranda had been similarly marked, one of the assistant secretaries asked the President why he did pat use the abbreviation "0.K." "Because it's wrong," replied the President. There was a sudden search for dictionaries, but although some of the lexicons attributed the use of " 0.K." to Andrew Jackson for " Oil Korrect," nons made mention of " Okeh." " Look it up in the latest dictionary," suggested the President, and here is part of what was found: " 0.K.: A humorous or original spelling of what should be ' Okch,' from the Choctaw language, meaning 'lt is so'; an article pronoun having a distinctive final uss; all right; correct; used as an endorsement of a bill." So it has come about that " Okeh W.W." is a kind of symbol of executive power in and about the White House. l