“O.K.”這個詞是怎麼來的
It’s a shortcut used the world over — and even beyond, having been uttered at least once during a space mission.
全世界都在用這個簡寫，甚至出了地球也用過它——在一次太空任務中被說了不止一次。On this day in 1839, The Boston Morning Post published “O.K.” for the first known time, using the abbreviation next to the words “all correct.” (It’s not written “okay,” The Times stylebook says.)
1839年的今天，《波士頓晨報》(The Boston Morning Post)上（就我們所知）首次出現了“O.K.”這個詞，在“全部正確”(all correct)的旁邊使用了這一簡寫。（根據時報自己的體例要求，不寫作“okay”。）There have been many theories about its origin, but the most likely is that O.K. was an abbreviation for the deliberately misspelled “orl korrect” (all correct), and the expression gained prominence in the mid-19th century.
關於它的來源衆說紛紜，但最有可能的，就是“O.K.”是故意拼錯了的“orl korrect”(all correct)的簡寫，這一表達在19世紀中葉迅速流行了起來。
Allen Walker Read, a longtime English professor at Columbia University, debunked some theories in the 1960s, including that the term had come from Andrew Jackson’s poor spelling, a Native American word or an Army biscuit.
長期在哥倫比亞大學執教的英文教授艾倫·沃克·裏德(Allen Walker Read)對1960年代的幾個說法做出了批駁，其中包括這一用法來自於安德魯·傑克遜(Andrew Jackson)寫的錯別字，以及這是美國原住民的土話，或是一種軍隊餅乾。
Today, O.K. is “an Americanism adopted by virtually every language, and one of the first words spoken on the moon,” the Times obituary of Mr. Read noted in 2002.
今天，“O.K.”是“基本每種語言都會使用的美國腔，並且是第一批在月球上說出來的詞語之一”，時報在2002年裏德的訃告裏指出。The professor didn’t “appreciate having ‘O.K.’ overshadow the hundreds of other etymologies he divined,” it continued. He also tracked early uses of Dixie, Podunk and the “almighty dollar.”
裏德教授並不“欣賞O.K.這個詞讓其餘數以百計在他眼裏同樣出色的詞源相形見絀這一點”，訃告裏說道。他還找到了Dixie（美國南部）、Podunk（無名小鎮）及almighty dollar（萬能的美元）這些用法的源頭。In the 1920s, Mr. Read hitchhiked through western Iowa hunting down the word blizzard.
在1920年代，裏德通過搭車的方式，遊遍了艾奧瓦州西部，找尋blizzard（暴風雪）這個詞的起源。“A man called Lightnin’ Ellis had first used the word for a snowstorm in 1870,” he learned. “Within 10 years, it had spread throughout the Midwest.”
“一位名叫‘閃電埃利斯’(Lightnin’ Ellis)的男子在1870年，第一次用這個詞來形容暴風雪，”他了解到。“10年內，這個詞就傳遍了中西部。”
