Apology [was: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"]

[Wilson Gray]

I first heard "go for the okey-doke" in Los Angeles ca.1957-58. How in
the world do some of these things spread from some source to the
entire country in no time at all, whereas others remain only
catchphrases used by the people who think them up?! (When I was a
teen, a friend thought up, "Oh, my roony!" No one else picked up on
it, whereas another friend's "to whale a while!" went everywhere,
perhaps even beyond Saint Louis. I've also heard it in Los Angeles,
but there were a *lot* of people from Saint Louis there, both people
that I had known in Saint Louis and others from there that I first met
in L.A. I even met other (black) people born in Marshall, Texas,
there. Los Angeles is a hell of a place!)

Naturally, I don't expect an answer nor am I claiming any kind of
antedating WRT "okey-doke." Who knows how long it was before he noted
it that Abrahams first heard it? It's the fact that it was used
simultaneously on both coasts that I mean to underline.

-Wilson

On 1/24/08, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Apology [was: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My desk copy of the revised ed. of Abrahams's book (Chicago: Aldine, 1970) (revised from his doctoral dissertation) indicates that the joke containing "okey-dok" (p. 225) was recorded in manuscript in 1958-59.
>
>   FWIW.
>
>   JL
>
>   "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> Subject: Re: Apology [was: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My sincere apologies. Eudora was warning me about the N-word, which
> I had not noticed in one quotation for "okey-doke".
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/24/2008 11:14 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >At 1/24/2008 09:27 AM, Amy West wrote:
> >>That sense is new to me, but that ain't saying much. I use
> >>"okey-dokey" for "OK", and get some giggles when I do. I always learn
> >>stuff here.
> >
> >I think I would get giggles if I said "okey-dokey" too.
> >
> >OED on-line (May 2004) has as its two earliest quotations for the
> >"confidence trick" sense:
> >1964 in R. D. Abrahams Deep down in Jungle v. 210 The reason why I
> >took you for the okey-dok [sic], is because you was the sharpest
> >nigger in town.
> >1975 R. HILL O. J. Simpson 13, I put the 'okey-doke' on them. [Of
> >course we don't know from the OED who the speaker was!]
> >
> >But Eudora seems to be quite on the qui vive for something! It warns
> >me that this message "is likely to offend the average reader. You
> >might consider toning it down." What could it possibly be alerting me about?
> >
> >Joel
> >
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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