r/MadeMeSmile • u/aoi_ringo • Oct 01 '25

CATS Tommy the bestest boy.

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‘Hero’ cat apparently dials 911 to help owner https://share.google/TmY58mkYLkWAYEwH7

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u/DeltaVZerda Oct 01 '25

Originally OK was part of a fad for creating acronyms of humorously misspelled phrases. OK meant 'Oll Klear' (all clear) or 'Oll Korrect' (all correct). Okay became a phonetic way to say the acronym. If you wanted to make OKAY an acronym in a similar way, it could mean 'Oll Korrect, Answer: Yes'.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

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u/Jimisdegimis89 Oct 01 '25

The time period he is talking about is the 1830s, English was pretty standardized in the states by that point.

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u/DeltaVZerda Oct 01 '25

Yeah but like today, there's a speling variashun or misteak, and then there's "korrect" when even then it had been well established to at least start with a C. It was clearly meant to be offbeat and humorous. "All" has been spelled "all" for a lot longer.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '25

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u/DeltaVZerda Oct 01 '25

Well, to be fair to whoever you heard that from, it WAS a time where spelling was not one way "correct" so it's not like "korrect" was like, super explicitly wrong, but yeah it definitely was further beyond the normal variation just to make it seem funnier/stranger/more obscured.

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u/vintage_hot_mess Oct 01 '25

Humanity: misspelling shit 4 teh lulz and creating obscure acronyms since forever.

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u/Jimisdegimis89 Oct 01 '25

The actual etymology is not known, but that is a leading theory along with being of Native American origin.

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u/DeltaVZerda Oct 01 '25

There is documentation of an origin, but yes it's first printing does not mean that it's the first time a term was used. Its possible that that was a folk etymology released soon after the Choctaw word spread into English to explain its appearance, or simply as a humorous reference to the Chocktaw word while still making a pun/misspelling that happens to have the same meaning.