There's a two-letter word that we hear everywhere.
这两个字母我们每天都会听到。
OK.
好的。好的。
OK.
OK, are you OK, Annie?
好的,你还好吗, Annie?
OK, OK, OK, OK ladies...
好的,好的,女士们...
OK might be the most recognizable word on the planet.
OK 可能是地球上最好辨认的字。
- OK! - OK.
-好!-好的。
It's essential to how we communicate with each other and even with our technology.
它在我们日常对话、甚至是科技中都扮演着重要角色。
Alexa, turn off the living room light.
Alexa,关掉客厅灯。
OK.
好的。
You probably use it every day, even if you don't notice it.
你可能每天都在说 OK,即使你没注意到。
But what does OK actually mean?
但 OK 到底代表什么意思?
And where did it come from?
是从哪里来的?
- Uh, OK. - OK, then.
-呃,好的。-那行。
OK, thank you.
好,谢谢你。
"OK" actually traces back to an 1830s fad of intentionally misspelling abbreviations.
“OK”的起源可以回溯到 1830 年代,那时流行故意拼错的简写。
Young intellectual types in Boston delighted those in the know with butchered coded messages such as KC, or "knuff ced"; KY, "know yuse"; and OW, "oll wright".
波士顿的年轻知识分子刻意拼错字和使用缩写像是 KC 表示 knuff ced(enough said); KY 表示 know yuse(no use); OW 表示 oll wright(all right)。
But thanks to a couple of lucky breaks, one abbreviation rose above the rest: OK, or "oll korrect".
因为几个幸运的机会,其中一个缩写从中脱颖而出:OK,或 oll korrect(all correct)。
In the early 1800s, "all correct" was a common phrase used to confirm that everything was in order.
在 1800 年代早期,“完全正确”是用来确认一切就绪的常见词组。
Its abbreviated cousin started going mainstream on March 23, 1839, when OK was first published in the Boston Morning Post.
在 1839 年 3 月 23 日时, OK 第一次被印在波士顿早报上,它的缩写开始变成主流。
Soon, other papers picked up on the joke and spread it around the country, until OK was something everyone knew about, not just a few Boston insiders.
很快,其他报纸也开始搞懂这个梗,并且散布到整个国家,直到大家都知道 OK 的意思,不再限于少数波士顿的内行人。
And OK's newfound popularity even prompted a flailing US president from Kinderhook, New York, to adopt it as a nickname during his 1840 reelection campaign.
OK 刚崛起的人气,甚至让来自纽约纽约肯德胡克的总统在 1840 年竞选连任时,用 OK 当作他的绰号。
Van Buren's supporters formed OK Clubs all over the country, and their message was pretty clear: Old Kinderhook was "oll korrect".
范布伦各地的支持者成立 OK 俱乐部,他们要传达的讯息很简单:老肯德胡克是“oll korrect”(完全正确)。
The campaign was highly publicized and turned pretty nasty in the press.
这个选举原本倍受关注,后来却变得声名狼藉。
His opponents ended up turning the abbreviation around on him, saying it stood for "orful konspiracy" or "orful katastrophe".
他的反对者用同一个缩写回击他,说 OK 代表“糟糕的阴谋”(awful conspiracy)或是“悲惨的灾难”(awful catastrophe)。
In the end, even a clever nickname didn't save Van Buren's presidency.
最终,连这个巧妙的绰号也无法挽救范布伦总统的地位。
But it was a win for OK.
但对 OK 来说却是一大胜利。
That 1840 presidential campaign firmly established OK in the American vernacular.
1840 年的总统大选让 OK 在美国方言中建立稳固地位。
And while similar abbreviations fell out of fashion, OK made the crossover from slang into legitimate, functional use, thanks to one invention: the telegraph.
当同期的缩写都已经不再流行,OK 却从俚语晋升成官方、正式用语,这都要感谢一项发明:电报。
If we lower the bridge, the current flows to the sounder.
我们把连接桥放下,电流就会流向发声器。
At the other end, the current energizes an electromagnet and this attracts the armature.
在另一端,电流使电磁铁充电,并吸到电枢。
The armature clicks down against a screw and taps out a message.
电枢往下碰到螺丝钉,就可以打出讯息。
The telegraph debuted in 1844, just five years after OK.
电报首次于 1844 年出现,也就是 OK 发明后的五年。
It transmitted short messages in the form of electric pulses, with combinations of dots and dashes representing letters of the alphabet.
它以电脉冲的形式传送短讯,用点和破折号的组合来表示各个字母。
This was OK's moment to shine.
这就是 OK 发扬光大的时刻。
The two letters were easy to tap out and very unlikely to be confused with anything else.
这两个字母很轻松就能打出来,而且很难跟其他字混淆。
It was quickly adopted as a standard acknowledgement of a transmission received, especially by operators on the expanding US railroad.
这很快这变成接收讯息的确认标准,特别用于不断扩张的美国铁路操作员之间。
This telegraphic manual from 1865 even goes as far as to say that "no message is ever regarded as transmitted until the office receiving it gives OK".
1865 年,这份电报手册甚至说明“在接收处办公室回复 OK 之前,任何讯息都不算传送成功。”
OK had become serious business.
OK 变成一件认真的事。
But there's another big reason the two letters stuck around, and it's not just because they're easy to communicate.
然而这两个字会一起使用,不只是因为它们很好表达,背后还有更大的原因。
It has to do with how OK looks.
这和 OK 这两个字的模样有关。
Or, more specifically, how the letter K looks and sounds.
或更精确来说,跟 K 的外型和读音有关。
It's really uncommon to start a word with the letter K in English ⏤ it's ranked around 22nd in the alphabet.
英文中,真的很少有 K 开头的单字,K 在字母表中排序是第 22。
That rarity spurred a "Kraze for K" at the turn of the century in advertising and print, where companies replaced hard Cs with Ks in order to "Katch" your eye.
这样的稀少性在上个世纪末激起了一股“K 的狂潮”,广告业和印刷业的业者硬是用 K 取代 C ,来吸引目光。
The idea was that modifying a word, like "Klearflax" Linen Rugs or this "Kook-Rite" Stove, for example, would draw more attention to it.
这个想法是把单字中的 C 改成 K,像是 Klearflax 的亚麻地毯,或 Kook-Rite 火炉,来吸引更多注意力。
And that's still a visual strategy: We see K represented in modern corporate logos, like Krispy Kreme and Kool-Aid.
这是一个视觉策略:我们现在仍可以看到现代公司把 K 用在商标上,例如 Krispy Kreme 和 Kool-Aid。
It's the K that makes it so memorable.
因为 K 会让人印象深刻。
By the 1890s, OK's Bostonian origins were already mostly forgotten, and newspapers began to debate its history, often perpetuating myths in the process that some people still believe.
到了 1890 年代, OK 在波士顿的起源几乎被遗忘了,报纸便开始辩论它的历史,有一些人们到现在都还一直相信谣言。
Like the claim that it comes from the Choctaw word "okeh", which means "so it is".
象是说 OK 是源自印地安乔克托族语“okeh”,意思是“就这样”。
Choctaw gave us the word OK; va...
乔克托族让 OK 出现...。
OK's beginnings had become obscure, but it didn't really matter anymore; the word was embedded in our language.
OK 的起源变得含糊不清,但这也不重要了,因为这个字已经深植入我们的语言之中。
Today, we use it as the ultimate "neutral affirmative".
今天,我们用它表示“中立的肯定词”。
OK, then.
那就 OK。
OK, then.
那OK。
- Learn to truly love yourself.
-学会真正爱自己。
- OK.
-OK。
OK, get yourself up here!
OK,快上台吧!
OK! OK! I don't know what to say.
我不知道要说什么。
Say "OK".
就说“OK”。那就这么决定了。
OK. OK. It's settled, then.
Allan Metcalf wrote the definitive history of OK, and he explains that the word "affirms without evaluating", meaning it doesn't convey any feelings, it just acknowledges and accepts information.
Allan Metcalf 写了 OK 的最终历史,他说明这个字是“没有经过评估后的肯定”表示它没有传递任何情感,只有单纯同意和接受信息。
If you "got home OK", it just means you were unharmed.
如果你说“OK 回到家了”,表示你安全无虞的到家。
If your "food was OK", then it was acceptable.
如果你的“食物还不错”,表示它还可以。
And "OK" confirms a change of plans.
“OK”也可以确认计划的改变。
It's sort of a reflex at this point; we don't even keep track of how much we use it.
现在变得有点像是反射动作,我们甚至不记得到底使用了多少次。
Which might be why OK was arguably the first word spoken when humans landed on the moon.
这可能是为什么 OK 会是人类登陆月球后,所说的第一个字。
Not bad for a corny joke from the 1830s.
这个 1830 年代的老套笑话还不赖。
All right, guys, cut it out.
好啦,就到到这里吧。
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