The World’s Most Frequently Used Word Originated in Massachusetts

The fault for American English lies mainly with our British ancestors, who flooded the shores of North America in the early 17th century and right on up through the 18th and 19th centuries. French, German and other European settlers also influenced many of the words we use today.

What if I told you the "most frequently spoken or written word on the planet," according to the South China Morning Post, is an American invention?

The word "OK" not only originated in America, it happened in Boston, Massachusetts.

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There are multiple spelling variations of "OK", such as "okay," "O.K.," "ok," and just "k" if you are texting. Don't you hate when you text two or more paragraphs only to receive "k" as a response?

In the 1960s, American linguist Allen Walker Read determined that the word "OK" originated around Boston as part of a fad in the late 1830s of abbreviating misspelled words that it is an initialism of 'oll korrect" as a misspelling of "all correct."

Read was also noted for his discovery of the origins of the "F" word and his frequent use of the word.

Read, born in Winnebago, Minnesota on June 2, 1906, began his quest for the origin of the word "OK" in 1941. The Los Angeles Times says Read, a former research assistant for the Dictionary of American English, began the endeavor supporting a friend who'd already been searching for clues.

Several years before his death on October 16, 2002, Allen Walker Read told New Yorker magazine he was "almost a little tired" of the notoriety that came with finding the origin of the word "OK."