Where did the term "OK/Okay" come from?

I've heard lots of varying histories of the term "OK".

Is there any evidence of the true origin of the term?

Solution 1:

According to the OED, the term OK began its days as a humorous initialism “apparently derived from the initial letters of oll (or orl) korrect, jocular alteration of ‘all correct’ ”, when it was first seen almost 200 years ago in the United States, way back in 1839.

It seems that this sort of off-kilter formation was considered quite funny at the time: “an instance of a contemporary vogue for humorous abbreviations of this type” per the OED.

By 1840, this use was “greatly reinforced by association” with another identical initialism O.K., this one derived from the nickname Old Kinderhook adopted by Martin Van Buren during his 1835 electoral campaign for the U.S. presidency. The corresponding verb was soon null-derived¹ from this initialism around 1882.

The OED further notes (with bold emphasis added in this post for clarity) that:

Other suggestions, e.g. that O.K. represents an alleged Choctaw word oke ‘it is’ (actually the affirmative verbal suffix -okii ‘indeed, contrary to your supposition’), or French au quai, or Scottish English och aye, or that it derives from a word in the West African language Wolof via slaves in the southern States of America, all lack any form of acceptable documentation.

The OED further states that “Competing theories as to the origin of the expression have been in evidence almost since its first appearance”, and then provides several early completing theories in support of that assertion.

Footnotes

1. Null derivation, also known as zero derivation, is when a word is conscripted unchanged into use for a part of speech that’s different from the customary one. It has no derivational affix and so is said to be null derived, such as when we null-derive nouns from adjectives in The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. A clearer example of this is the classic refrain that “verbing weirds language”, which features two instances of null-derivation: not only does it null-derive a new verb “verb” from its noun and then uses its verbal -ing inflection as a subject, it also null0derives a new verb “weird” from its adjectives and then uses the new verb’s third-person singular inflection.

Solution 2:

Historical discussions of the origin of 'OK'

Here are some discussions of the etymology of OK through the years, arranged chronologically.

From "Great Rally of the Democracy, State Convention," in the Burlington [Vermont] Free Press (July 13, 1840):

After the resolutions had been read [at the Whig party's Vermont state convention] Mr. [Charles] ADAMS made some remarks in support of them, partly as he remarked, because he was a citizen of this state and partly because he was one of the committee which reported them. ... Mr. A. said that he noticed upon the banner at the head of one of the county delegations [from New York] the letters O. K. and that he had asked an explanation of their signification. He learned that while Gen. Jackson was president, he was in the habit of marking those bills which received his approval with these letters, as the initials of all correct: but he said that the feelings and judgment of the people now gave to them the more significant meaning of off to Kinderhook [the hometown of President Van Buren, a Democrat].

From The [Washington, D.C.] Madisonian (October 9, 1840):

The following definitions of O. K. are from the Baltimore Clipper. They are highly amusing:

"Vat zey mean by ze letter O. K., vich I see every day, almost two, tree, eleven times, in ze journal politique of ze day?" asked a French gentleman in a crowd yesterday. "I read ze grand national affair and ven I come to ze end I behold O. K! I glance my eye to ze report of ze election, and he begin wiz O. K. Every ting has O. K.—and I never shall comprehend him."

"Why sir," answered one of the company, looking very knowingly, "it means oll korrect-"

"No. mounseer," said another, "it stands for orful katastrophe."

"You're mistaken," says a third, "it means oll for Kent."

...

"That's wrong," says an eighth, "it means that the political writers having exhausted all the words in the English dictionary, have been compelled to resort to single letters to express themselves. Therefore it's oll kompelled."

So the Frenchman was just as wise as ever.

From Maximilian Schele de Vere, Americanisms: The English of the New World (1872):

American politics abound in catch-words, the great majority of which pass away with the accident that gave them birth, while others please the fancy of the populace or acquire, by an unexpected success, such a hold on the public mind as to secure to them a longer lease of life. One of these is as ludicrous in its origin as tenacious in its persistency in the slang of the day. The story goes that General Jackson, better known in American history as Old Hickory, was not much at home in the art of spelling, and his friend and admirer, Major Jack Downing, found therefore no difficulty in convincing the readers of his "Letters" that the President employed the letters O. K. as an endorsement of applications for office and other papers. They were intended to stand for 'All Correct,' which the old gentleman preferred writing Oll Korrect, and hence they are used, to this day, very much in the sense of the English "All Right."

From W.S. Wyman, "Replies," in The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries (August 1885):

In the language of the Choctaw Indians, one of the most frequently recurring expressions is the emphatic oke, with which an affirmation or denial is concluded. This oke (pronounced with strong accent on the last syllable) is one of the substitutes for the copulative verb to be which is wanted in Choctaw. Oke, as pronounced in Choctaw, has exactly the same sound as the alphabetic pronunciation of the letters O. K. in English.

The meaning of the expression, as nearly as it can be conveyed in English is: "That is true;" "That is all so." ...

To General Andrew Jackson is attributed the introduction of the Choctaw word into our Anglo-American speech. Before the war of 1812, in voyages up and down the Mississippi and in trading expeditions overland from Nashville, Tenn., to Natchez, Miss., through the Choctaw Nation, he was brought into frequent communication with the Choctaws.

General Jackson, as everybody knows, was prone to the use of downright and energetic methods of assertion. Hearing this emphatic oke so frequently uttered by the Choctaw people, he learned the meaning conveyed by it to the Choctaw mind, and appropriated it, out of hand, to his own purposes. From him it passed over to the multitude. This account of the origin of O. K. has been current in the South for many years. If not true, it is, to say the least, ben trovato.

From John Stephen Farmer, Americanisms—Old & New (1889):

O. K.—All right; all correct. Authorities differ as to the precise origin of this expression. The initials O. K. are supposed to stand for "all correct." The most likely derivation seems that told by De Vere, to the effect that General Jackson, better known in American history as Old Hickory, who was not much at home in the art of spelling, and that he employed the letters O. K. as an endorsement of applications for office and other papers, intending them to stand for "oll (orl) correct (korrect)".

From Charles Norton, Political Americanisms: A Glossary of Terms and Phrases Current at Different Periods in American Politics (1890):

O. K.—A common abbreviation for " all correct." The story runs that Andrew Jackson (President, 1825–33) puzzled his secretary by endorsing "O. K." on official papers that met his approval. Inquiry brought out the information that it stood for "all correct," and the secretary was left to infer that his chief spelled it "orl korrect." No doubt the story is a gross exaggeration, manufactured for campaign purposes, though it is admitted that Jackson was more of a soldier than a scholar.

From Albert Barrere & Charles Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume 2 (1890):

O.K. (American telegraph), all correct, used to denote the line is clear, also to express anything very nice. An expression first attributed to President Jackson, who was said to have written O.K. for "all correct."

From Webster's International Dictionary (1890), in an appendix of "Abbreviations and Contractions Used in Writing and Printing" (the main text has no entry for OK):

O. K. All correct.

From James Maitland, The American Slang Dictionary (1891):

O. K. (Am.), an alleged condensation of "Orl Korrect" a misspelling of all correct. To "O. K." an account is to initial it in evidence of its correctness, and as the two letters are easily written the practice has become common in business circles.

From W. S. Wyman, "The Origin of 'O. K.'" in The Century Illustrated Magazine (1894):

The true explanation of O. K. is probably as follows: There is a tradition among the intelligent Choctaws of the old stock who once lived in Mississippi that General Jackson borrowed the expression O. K. from the Choctaw language.

...

General Jackson was frequently among the Choctaws and Chickasaws before he became famous. he must have heard this expression [okéh, meaning "It is true," "It is so," "It is all right," etc.] often.

From The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1897) [entry retained in editions through 1906]:

O. K. {Origin obscure: usually said to have been orig. used by Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, as an abbr. of All Correct, spelled (whether through ignorance or humorously) oll korrect; but this is doubtless an invention. Another statement refers the use to "Old Keokuk," an Indian chief who is said to have signed treaties with the initials "O. K."} All right; correct: now commonly used as an indorsement, as on a bill. {Colloq.}

From The New International Encyclopædia, volume 13 (1903):

O. K. The story that General Jackson used these letters to indorse official papers as correct seems to have been started by Seba Smith (Major Downing), the humorist. It was a hit at Jackson's supposed illiteracy, and at a party cry during the Presidential campaign of 1832 acquired great vogue. Parton states that Jackson used to indorse legal documents O. R., order recorded, and the mistaking of the letters was probably the basis of Downing's jest. The term is also said to have originated with Josh Billings and has been ascribed to several other persons. Jacob Astor is said to have used it to indicate the standing of traders about whom he was questioned. In colonial days, the best tobacco and rum were imported from Aux Cayes, and from this fact Aux Cayes (O Kay) became a popular expression for excellence.

From The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1911) [repeated in the 1914 edition]:

O. K. {A humorous or ignorant spelling of what should be okeh, < Choctaw (Chakta) okeh, an 'article pronoun,' a kind of adjunct, meaning 'it is so,' having in the 'predicative form' a 'distinctive and final' use, 'okeh, it is so and in no other way'; also interjectionally, 'yai okeh, thanks to you' (Byington, "Grammar of the Choctaw Lang." p. 55); a use that may be compared with that of the Hebrew and European amen.} All right; correct: now commonly used as an indorsement, as on a bill. {Colloq.}

From Richard Thornton, An American Glossary, volume 2 (1912):

O.K. {See quotation 1828} A certificate of correctness. To O.K. a bill is to pronounce it correct.

The phrase was certainly used by Andrew Jackson. He may have taken it from the Choctaw Oke or Hoke, meaning "It is so." See Mag. Am. Hist. xiv. 212–213 (1885); also Century Mag., xlviii. 958–9 (1894). Or it may have been a mistake originally for O.R. The records of Sumner County, Tenn., contain this entry :— "October 6th, 1790. Andrew Jackson, Esq., proved a Bill of Sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for a negro man, which was O.K." Mr. James Parton ('Life of Jackson,' i. 136) suggests that this was a common western mistake for O.R., i.e., Ordered Recorded. See Mr. Matthews in Notes and Queries 11. S. iii. 390. The latter solution is probable.

[Earliest two cited instances:] 1828 In the Presidential campaign of 1828, General Jackson was accused by some of his opponents of being illiterate. It was alleged that he spelled the words "all correct" thus, "oll Korrct." Hence originated the abbreviation O.K.—Peter H. Burnett, 'Recollections,' p. 45 (N.Y. 1880). 1841 Jeremiah would be ashamed of his Lamentations, were he here to hear the modern Whigs mourning over the distresses of the people on account of a weak Treasury. O.K. Orful Kalamity.—Mr. Reynolds of Illinois, House of Repr., Feb. 5: Cong. Globe, p. 141, App.

From Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, third edition (1916), again in the "Abbreviations Used in Writing and Printing" appendix [same in the fourth edition (1931)]:

O.K, or OK. Correct; all right. Cant.

From "O-K-E-H" in the [Valley City, North Dakota] Weekly Times-Record (September 26, 1918):

Somebody once asked President Wilson why he always writes "Okeh" in approving memorandums and documents instead of the more common "O. K."

"Because O. K. is wrong," replied the president. "O-k-e-h is correct."

The White house attaches scurried for dictionaries, but the best they could find under "O. K." was that Andrew Jackson started it by spelling "all correct" "Oll Korrect."

"Look it up in the latest dictionary," suggested the president. They did, and this is what they found: "O. K.—A humorous or ignorant spelling of what should be 'okeh,' from the Choctaw language, meaning, 'It is so;' an article pronoun having a distinctive final use; all right; correct."

So "Okeh Woodrow Wilson," or more commonly, "Okeh W. W." bids fair to become as famous as Roosevelt's "Dee-lighted."—St. Paul [Minnesota] News.

From Ernest Weekley, An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, volume 2 (1921):

o.k. For orl korrect. U.S. since 1790.

From Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, fifth edition (1936), the first edition in the Collegiate series to include an entry for O.K. in the main text of the dictionary:

O.K., or OK. {Prob. fr. Choctaw oke, hoke, yes, it is.} Colloq., exc[ept] in endorsing documents. Correct; all right.

From H.L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States, fourth edition (1936), in the course of discussing ten theories about the origin of O.K.:

A ninth [etymology] derives it from a Choctaw word, okeh, signifying "it is so." "Webster's [Second] New International Dictionary" (1934) accepts this last, though adding a saving "probably," but the Supplement to the Oxford Dictionary (1933) rejects it, saying that "it does not agree with the evidence." There is yet a tenth etymology, whereby O.K. is made to originate in a libel of Andrew Jackson by Seba Smith (Major Jack Downing), who is said to have alleged, c. 1832, that he saw Jackson's endorsement "O.K., Amos," on the elegant pronunciamentoes drawn up for him by his literary secretary, Amos Kendall. Says a floating newspaper paragraph:

_{Possibly the general did use this endorsement, and it may have been used by other people also. But James Parton has discovered in the records of the Nashville court of which Jackson was a judge, before he became President, numerous documents endorsed O.R., meaning Ordered Recorded. He urges, therefore, that it was a record of that court with some belted business which Major Downing saw on the desk of the Presidential candidate. However this may be, the Democrats, in lieu of denying the charge, adopted the letters O.K. as a sort of party cry and fastened them upon their banners.}

This last theory, it seems to me, deserves more investigation than it has got.

From Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, first edition (1937):

o.k. ; gen. O.K. ... Thornton records it at 1828 and gives an anticipation (likewise by Andrew Jackson) at 1790: but on these two instances the O.E.D. throws icy water and gives 1840 as the date. It either = oll (or orl) korrekt (or k'rekt) or is a Western U.S. error for order recorded (Thornton inclines to the latter origin); or again—the fashionable (but not the O.E.D. Sup.'s) view of the 1930's—it may represent the Choctaw (h)oke, it is so, for Jackson presumably knew the Choctaw word and it was his opponents who, wishing to capitalize his well-known illiteracy, imputed (so it is held) the orl k'rect origin to the phrase's first user.

From Allen Read, "The Evidence on 'O. K.'," in Saturday Review of Literature (1941) [combined snippets]:

When you first look at the vast quantity of writing on the origin of "O. K.", you find a wilderness of claims and counter-claims. But when you discard the hearsay evidence, the unfounded speculation, and the misread manuscripts, you get a reasonable pattern of historical development. I am able to present here the earliest documentary evidence; first, however, it is necessary to dispose of four alleged instances that arise from misrepresented manuscripts.

The earliest of these is dated December 8, 1565. The letters O. K. are said to occur at the end of the will of Thomas Cumberland, a lorimer of London, entered in the Archdeaconry Court registers. It is unreasonable to suppose that "O. K." as we know it could have lain dormant for nearly three hundred years. The finder of it, as he says in Notes and Queries for June 10, 1911, did not think that the letters were the initials of the scrivener, but some such explanation must be the case. Another alleged instance comes from the year 1757, but an examination of the manuscript shows that it is not "O. K." at all but an ill-written "Att.", standing for "Attestation" or "Attested by" at the end of a document. For many years faith has been put in an instance of 1790, from the records of Summer County, Tennessee, with this entry: “Andrew Jackson, Esq., proved a Bill of Sale from Hugh McGary to Gaspar Mansker, for a negro man, which was O. K." But an investigator has examined this manuscript, as he writes in American Speech for April, 1941, and finds that the "O. K." is clearly "O. R.", standing for "Order Recorded." Finally, an alleged instance of 1815 has recently turned up in the diary of a Boston businessman, William Richardson. The marks have the appearance of a small "o k" without periods, interlined at a blotted place in the manuscript; but they do not fit into the sense well and are out of tone with the other parts of the text. All things considered, we can consign the instances of 1565, 1757, 1790, and 1815 to the same limbo.

The story begins, then, in the Spring of 1840, and is closely bound up with the political situation in New York City. The Democratic Party was intent on re-electing Martin Van Buren for a second term, and they kept up interest, particularly in the radical Locofoco branch by means of a set of social clubs. On March 11, 1840, the Locofoco newspaper, the New York New Era, listed the clubs as follows—the Butt Enders, the Tammany Temple, the Indomitables, the Huge Paws (named for their symbol, a muscular arm grasping a hammer) the Van Buren Association, and the Simon Pures. Twelve days later a new club made its first public appearance by an announcement of a meeting to be held March 24, 1840. This was "The Democratic O. K. Club," and the name marks the first appearance of "O. K."

The meaning of the name was held a secret, in keeping with political practices of the time. The meteoric rise of the “Know-Nothing” party a few years later was based on a similar secrecy, with oaths not to reveal its mysteries. As we shall see later, this "O. K. Club" was named after "Old Kinderhook," the birthplace of Martin Van Buren, near Albany. In papers of the time Van Buren was referred to in such terms as "the magician of Kinderhook," "your cunning Kinderhook Fox," and "the Kinderhook pony." ...

From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary [aka Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, sixth edition] (1949):

O.K., or OK. {From the O.K. Club, a Democratic organization supporting (1840) President Van Buren for re-election, fr. Old Kinderhook, N. Y., his birthplace. See Saturday Review of Literature, July 19, 1941} Colloq., exc[ept] in endorsing documents. Correct; all right.

From Midford Mathews, A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles (1951):

O.K., n. Also okay, okeh.

1. A member of the O.K. Club. Obs. [Earliest citation:] 1840 N.Y. D[ai]ly Express 9 April 2/2 The Whig young men have a grand rally tomorrow night. On Friday, come the Indomitables—O.K.'s.

2. The symbol or watchcry of the O.K. Club. Obs. or hist. [Earliest citation:] 1840 N.Y. D[ai]ly Express 3 April 2/2 About 9 o'clock a procession from the 10th and other up town wards marched down Center Street headed by a banner inscribed 'O.K.'

b. An alleged abbreviation of "Oll (all) Korrect." Obs. [Earliest citation:] 1840 Nat[ional] Intelligencer 7 April 1/2 The Locos translate 'O.K.' oll korrect (Locofoco orthography of which they are proud!)

From Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963) [unchanged in the eighth edition (1973)]:

OK or okay {abbr. of oll korrect, alter. of all correct} : all right

From The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971):

O.K. Orig. U.S. Also okay, okeh. Originally used as an abbreviation for 'oll correct', misspelling of 'all correct'.

Alleged instances of O.K. in 1790 and 1828 have no evidence to support them. The earliest occurrence so far noted is in the Boston Transcript of 15 April 1840. In this and two examples from April and June the meaning is not clear, but the explanation 'oll korrect' appears on June 18 (see below). The attribution to Gen. Jackson was probably not intended to be taken seriously. Other jocular extensions of the initials follow in the same year. The suggestion that they represent the Choctaw oke 'it is' first appears in 1885, and does not accord with the evidence.

[Earliest cited examples:] 1840 Atlas (Boston) 18 June 2/1The band rode in a stage, which had a barrel of Hard Cider on the baggage rack, marked with large letters 'O.K.'—oll korrect. Ibid. 19 Aug. 2/4 These initials, according to Jack Downing, were first used by Gen. Jackson. 'Those papers, Amos {Kendall}, are all correct. I have marked them O.K.' (oll korrect). The Gen. was never good at spelling.

From Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary (1983) [unchanged in the tenth (1993) and eleventh (2003) editions]:

OK or okay {abbr. of oll korrect, facetious alter. of all correct} (1839) : all right

My assessment

Searches of the Google Books database and the Library of Congress Chronicling America newspaper database confirm that it is difficult to find a legitimate instance of OK in the sense of "all right" or "all correct" from before 1840. A sudden upsurge in instances of OK toward the end of 1840 suggests that that was the year when usage of the term became so common that newspapers could effectively devote space to talking about where the phrase originated—and to post jokes about it, such as an item asserting that, according to "the Ladies," it stood for "only kissing;" a longer piece, "O. K. Orkward Kondition" jokingly suggested meanings ranging from "Onavailable Kandidate" (Daniel Webster) to "Oh! Klay" (Henry Clay).

As the OED points out, any reference to an instance of OK prior to 1839–1840 is highly suspect, given the absence of corroborating documentation. This in turn makes claims about use of the term during or before Andrew Jackson's Presidency (1829–1837) highly suspect.

Another aspect of "O. K." across much of the nineteenth century is how little attention mainstream dictionaries paid it until about 1890. Worcester's dictionary of 1871 and Webster's big dictionaries of 1828, 1840, 1847, and 1864 ignore OK completely. Webster's International Dictionary (1890) acknowledges the term's existence, but treats it merely as an abbreviation of all correct. Discussion of the term's etymology fell to newspapers, memoirists, and language observers of varying levels of qualification.

Many major figures of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prescriptivist grammar—such as Seth Hurd, Richard Bache, Ebenezer Brewer, Charles Bardeen, John Bechtel, Albert Raub, Ralcy Bell, and Frank Vizetell—had nothing to say about OK. It's as though the expression were so far outside the mainstream of U.S. English speech that the sentinels of proper English saw no need to condemn it.

The first general dictionary to give O.K. its own main-text entry was the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia of 1897–1914, followed by Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1934) and its compact spin-off, Webster's Fifth Collegiate Dictionary (1936).

Both Century and Webster's change their etymologies for O.K.—Century from "Origin obscure" (1897–1910) to "Choctaw okeh" (1911–1914+); and Webster's from "Cant" (1916–1935) to "Chocktaw okeh" (1936–1948) to "Old Kinderhook" (1949–1962) to "oll korrect" (1963–present). In the various etymologies that the mainstream dictionaries offer, the heyday of the Choctaw okeh interpretation lasted for about 40 years, from the arrival of the 1911 Century dictionary until the arrival of the 1949 Webster's Sixth Collegiate. Even during the 1911–1948 interval, such serious students of etymology as Richard Thornton, Ernest Weekley, and H. L. Mencken favored other hypotheses.

The Choctaw okeh hypothesis was put forward on two separate occasions (in 1885 and again in 1894) by the same man—W.S. Wyman, a professor of Latin at the University of Alabama and an active member of the Alabama Historical Society. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many people believed that O.K. was attested in English going back to a use by Andrew Jackson in 1790; Jackson's years as an Indian fighter in a part of North America where Choctaw was the predominant Native American language lent further credence to the claim. But if you drop Jackson out of the picture, bump the first established instance of usage of "O. K." from 1790 to 1839–1840, and observe that the earliest confirmed instances of the term took the form of a swarm of occurrences in New York and New England, the case for the Choctaw hypothesis becomes substantially weaker.

This, I think, is what the OED means when it says that the argument on behalf of the Choctaw okeh connection "does not accord with the evidence."

Like the fictional Frenchman in The Madisonian in late 1840, I still don't know what the origin of OK is. But I think it's more likely to have been an abbreviation—fractured or not—of a phrase that already existed in English than a word imported and oddly transliterated from another language.

UPDATE (4/3/2016): An instance from 1839

A search of the Portal of Texas History newspaper database turns up a match from 1839. From "The Rummy Cork," in the [Houston, Texas] Telegraph and Texas Register (August 21, 1839), credited as coming originally from the Boston Post:

Mr. J. ["a very zealous temperance reformer"] was true to his appointment, and called for a pint of liquor. Mr. Fay, the younger [a distiller] making a great flourish of his tunnel and measure, filled the bottle with water. Then corking it tight, poured some rum on the cork. Mr. J. took a long smell of the cork and supposed it to be o.k. (all correct) asked "how much was to pay".

Solution 3:

The etymology from a jokey acronym is a 1960s fabrication. There is no way that such nonsense would catch on without a reinforcing loan-word borrowing. The acronyms by themselves are not funny. They become funny if people were already using terms that sounded like these acronyms, and these terms were poking fun at illiterate misunderstandings of these terms.

Like in a region with many spanish speakers, the following acronym might be funny:

C.C.: Correct, Captain (Si, Si)

In the 19th century, the U.S. was not an English speaking nation--- only the settled parts were. The frontier parts had large Choctaw speaking swaths, and settlers and natives had to be at least bilingual to get along. There is no doubt that a large number of loanwords were floating around at the time, and some of them might sound like some letters. Then if someone wrote down a dictionary of abbreviations that sounded like Choctaw loanwords, it would actually be funny. OK as "Oll Korrect" for example.

Due to the atrocious American Native policies, the death marches and so on, anything to do with natives was systematically erased from the collective memory, and replaced by nonsense. I believe that Ok is frontier Choctaw, Okeh (pronounced okay), and was given a non-native etymology as part of the program of erasing native contributions from the collective memory.

See this page for a complete convincing argument, a demolition of the fabricated "Oll Korrect" or "Old Kinderhook" etymologies (both related), and more detail: https://web.archive.org/web/20120208134453/http://www.illinoisprairie.info/chocokeh.htm (link broke, uses wayback machine). The dictionaries of the 19th century knew it was Choctaw.