[Ads-l] Earliest True Acronym

[Baker, John]

“Ok” as a pronounceable acronym has been around since at least 1937, when “The Lady Is a Tramp” included the lines “I’m broke It’s ok.”  But that is hardly a threat to the priority of the earlier acronyms already mentioned.


John Baker


From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Martin Purdy
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2024 1:26 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Earliest True Acronym

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Reminds me of a gag in a 1960s British radio show: "The walls were oak, and the floor wasn't too bad either." >
> It's an initialism, not an acronym. It's pronounced as the separate
> letters "O" and "K", not as a monosyllabic word like the tree "oak".
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
>
> On Fri, Jan 26, 2024 at 04:06:01PM +0000, Geoffrey Nathan wrote:
> > While I don't want to start a fight here, isn't the proposed etymology
> > of OK as being from the abbreviation of 'Old Kinderhook' an example
> > of an early pronounced acronym? It dates to the 1830's.
> >



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