Author(s): Michelle McSweeney

Essay | Anthropology | Philosophy

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

OK as a word accepts proposals, describes the world as satisfactory (but not good), provides conversational momentum, or even agrees (or disagrees). OK as an object, however, tells a story of how technology writes itself into language, permanently altering communication.
OK is a young word, less than 200 years old. It began as an acronym for "all correct" when the steam-powered printing press pushed newspapers into the mainstream. Today it is spoken and written by nearly everyone in the world. Drawing on linguistics, history, and new media studies, Michelle McSweeney traces OK from its birth in the Penny Presses through telephone lines, grammar books, and television signals into the digital age.
Nearly ubiquitous and often overlooked, OK illustrates the never-ending dance between language, technology, and culture, and offers lessons for our own techno-historical moment.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Review: [A] slim and lucid addition to the Object Lessons series. . . . McSweeney traces the word's evolution through the present, illuminating the ways in which its meaning developed over time. * The Millions *
More than just OK. . . . A quick and fascinating read. . . . Short, but mentally nutritious. * The DreamCage *
A concise yet wide-ranging tour though the history of how technology has influenced the way we talk with each other. * Gretchen McCulloch, linguist and author of Because Internet *
OK is more than just okay-it's the handiest and most up-to-date account of this mysterious yet deathless little expression available. Witness the history of something we say all day every day that's actually new enough that it would have left Thomas Jefferson scratching his head. * John McWhorter, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Columbia University, USA, author of Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter Then, Now and Forever and host of the podcast Lexicon Valley *

Contents: 1. Ok (Introduction) 2. Oll Korrect (Origins) 3. Ok? (Alternative Origins) Grains of Truth An Exotic Loanword Food 4. Olde Kinderhook (Branding) Ok Products 5. Okay (Literature) 6. Oh-kay (Telephone) A Modern Ok 7. Ok! (Television) Culture, Technology, and War 8. K (the Internet) Bulletin Board Systems 9. Kk (Social Media) English 10. [OK emoji] (Gesture) 11. O.k. Ok, Ok, Lol (Conclusion) Bibliography Index

Author Biography: Michelle McSweeney is Director of Data Quality and Annotation at Converseon.AI, USA, Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute School of Information, Associate Researcher at The CUNY Graduate Center Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS), and Adjunct Professor at The CUNY Graduate Center MA program in Digital Humanities.