"OK" - The Holy Grail of Etymology

How are you? I'm ok. (fine)
How was your exam? Oh, it was okay. (not excellent but not poor either)
Did you hurt your leg? No, its o.k. (uninjured)
Are all the above uses for the word "OK" , okay?? (correct)

So, let me ask you now, is ok/OK/o.k./okay a word? or is it an acronym or an abbreviation for some words? And whatever it is, where did it originate? Never really thought about it, did you? Neither did I. But a few days back, I learnt that hardly anyone knew what it meant or where it came from... Let me enlighten those of you who're interested.
Over the past couple of days, I went through quite a few documents online, and learnt that "okay" was surrounded by numerous controversial explanations. Some of them were quite funny too. But b4 I enlist some of those, I want to ask u - What do u think ok means? Keep that in mind and read on....

Lets keep the true, or should i say "most accepted" explanation for the end. First, some aberrations...

Most words of modern English are believed to have come from some other language. Thus, came many of the explanations below:
1. Greek "olla kalla" - all right/satisfactory
2. Red Indians' Choctaw "okeh" - it is so
3. Finnish "oikea" - proper/correct
4. Latin "omnis korecta" - all right
5. Scottish "och aye" - "all is well"

Boring?? Let me tell you a few of the better ones then:
1. OK stands for "Old Kinderhook", which is the nickname of Martin Van Buren, the 8th American president(1837-1841) who was from Kinderhook, NY. During his campaigns "OK" was used as a branding agent.
2. They are the initials of "Old Keokuk", a native american tribal chief who used to sign treaties with his initials.
3. They come from the signature of a railroad shipping clerk, "Obadiah Kelly" who put his initials on bills of lading after checking them.
4. It's short for "Orrin Kendall", a cracker (biscuits) supplier to the Union Army during the Civil War. Their crackers were considered to be of very good quality.
5. Short for "Aux Cayes", a Haitian port famous for its rum.
6. Greek usage - "Omega khi" - incantation used to drive away fleas

I guess that's enough of suspense. Let's come to the most accepted one now, and probably the funniest too.
In 1963-64, Allen Walker Read of Columbia University uncovered the truth behind "ok" in a series of articles published in the journal "American Speech". According to these articles, OK's origin dates back to 1838. In the summer of that year, Boston newspaper editors started creating abbreviations for various phrases, ex. GTDHD - "Give the Devil his due", OFM - "Our first men", etc. This practice is very similar to what we do today on the internet. Often, these editors would deliberately misspell (as a joke) some of these abbreviations. It was in this fashion that OK was born. On March 23, 1839, one of the editors at Boston Post wrote this "....perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the [Providence] Journal, and his train-band, would have the "contribution box",etc. - o.k. - all correct - and cause the corks to fly....". The o.k. represents a misspelt "all correct" as "orl korrekt". This abbreviation was repeated in various news articles and became quite common jargon.
OK would've become a ghost, just like GTDHD and OFM, if it were not for various other occurences of the same term. You can say it was popularized and marketed by incidents such as "Old Kinderhook" and many others.

I'm sure there are still many other explanations cited by various scholars for "ok". You're free to believe any of them (you can even share them with us), but one thing's for sure. "OK" is here to stay.....

P.S. To read about other interesting facts on the origin of words/phrases, you can check out "Word Myths" by David Wilton and Ivan Brunetti.

In search of a lost friend.... "William (Billy) Spanos"

One of the things I've always cherished in life is childhood friendship (Something which many of us in India call "Langotiye yaar"). And by childhood, I mean the days when you were learning to read, write, spell and ride a bicycle. I consider those people very special who have been able to maintain that bond throughout their life. Sometimes we meet people in this world, whom we wish we had known since childhood. But unfortunately, we only have one shot at those diaper-days and some of us make the best of it...

Why am I writing about this today? Well, for quite some time now I've been trying to get in touch with a really good friend of mine, whom I know since the days which my mind can remember. You'd wonder that in this era of the "www", tracking down anyone would be easy. But, my searches have ended in a tall wall every time. I've had a go at Google, Yahoo, MSN, Rediff and so many more but in vain. I have even gone to the extent of messaging every single profile with the name "Billy/William Spanos" on various social networking sites such as orkut, facebook, hi5, etc. Now before you start calling me crazy, let me tell you the complexities of my case.
Billy and I grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut during the late 80s and early 90s. He is a few years younger than me but I guess that never really mattered. Our houses were right opposite each other and out of 24 hrs in a day, if you were to remove the 14 hrs of sleep and school, the remaining 10 were always spent playing together. Billy is basically Greek but I think he was born in US only. We fought like all other friends but it never lasted long. Our parents always had to search both houses before declaring us lost. Oh..... we never really got lost. We'd just be hanging around. I miss every moment of those days; fooling around with sand & mud, jumping on the trampoline, playing video games, racing on our bicycles (with 3 wheels), playing basketball. But what I miss the most are the Swings, where we tried our best to go real high and touch the sky, as if that were possible!! I recall Billy trying hard to teach me how to ride a bicycle, but I was a horrible learner. Poor Billy!
I remember how glad I was when Billy shifted to my school (Read Elementary) from his previous one. It was like the cherry on top of dessert. After that, on many occassions Anna or Taso (Billy's parents) used to drop us to school together. I've had many other friends at School and I've made many more over the years, but I can never forget that little fellow who taught me what friendship is.
I left the U.S. in 1995 and that was the last time I saw Billy (except for a picture of his which he sent me a few years later). Little did I know that I would never be returning to USA (atleast not in the near future) and may never see him again. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to recognize him today, that's why even the pictures on net don't really help. During the initial years after 95', we used to write to each other (email wasn't really prominent during that time) but then the letters just got lost in the haze. It kinda reminds me of "Kumbh ka Mela" which Indian cinematogrophers use so conveniently in many movies.
Today, when I try his VERY OLD number which I have, it's useless. I guess he's changed his home and as I said, the net hasn't helped me much. In a way, this blog-post is like a last-pitch effort in my search for that long-lost buddy; In the hope that maybe he or someone else who knows him will read it. Miss you brother.....
The collage below contains a few pics from those good old days.


P.S. If any of you out there want to mention some of their childhood memories of friends, feel free to do so. You have my Ears, or I should say Eyes.... :-)

It's a Shark...It's a Submarine... No, It's sQuba!!

In the 1977 movie, ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, Roger Moore (James Bond from 1973-1985), a secret agent, impressively dove below the waves in a sleek vehicle that moments before seemed to be an ordinary car. Of course the scene never actually took place; it was just an animation.

No Fins, but this one still Swims:
The movie fake became a reality for visitors at the Geneva Motor Show (March 2008) in the form of “sQuba”, the world’s first real submersible car from Rinspeed. Though military vehicles have been known to travel under water in the past, they are restricted to driving slowly over submerged ground.

With sQuba, you can now drive straight into water and the car will float. To go on a diving experience, you just have to crack open the doors. While under water, you can breathe from an integrated tank of compressed air. When you’re ready to retreat to land, just crawl your way back to any nearby ramp/beach. The sQuba would even give turtles a complex.
For sQuba, the true challenge was to make it swim like a fish under water, in addition to making it water-tight and pressure-resistant. The car’s open cockpit solves buoyancy issues and also serves the purpose of higher safety. In the absence of any occupants, the car surfaces automatically. The sQuba is even capable of autonomous driving on land thanks to a sophisticated laser sensor system from the Hamburg Company Ibeo - without any help from the driver or passenger. The sQuba is an environment-friendly vehicle with zero-emissions, powered by Lithium ion batteries. Even the Motorex lubricants used in the ‘sQuba’ are biodegradable. The car has been given a sporty look which was converted into a diver’s dream by Swiss specialist “Esoro”.
Starting with initial concepts, it took the highly skilled development team at Esoro, just six months to realize the entire project. Rinspeed Founder-CEO, Frank M. Rinderknecht (52) has always been known for his extraordinary automotive creations. But with sQuba, he says he has fulfilled a 3 decade dream.

Some other technical facts on sQuba:
Empty Weight: approx. 920 kg. (Approximately equal to the weight of a Maruti Suzuki 800)
Top Speed: >120 km/hr.
Water Speed: > 6 km/hr.
Under water speed: > 3 km/hr.
Dive depth: 10 metres
Seating capacity: 2
Cost to build prototype: 1.5 million USD (Rinderknecht claims that when produced commercially, the car will cost less than a Rolls Royce, even then, that’s about $400,000 minimum)

I agree that the sQuba is a true novelty; a child’s fantasy and every diver’s dream, but let’s be realistic. How many people would be interested to go diving with their car? And what happens if the car breaks down under water? How many mechanics can actually fix this really COOL car? But I guess I’m just trying to find faults. The truth is that such an innovation deserves a round of applause. Keep it up Rinspeed…

Before I end, I just want to quote these words of John Lennon (Beatles), which were displayed on the home page of Rinspeed:
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one"

Michael Crichton: The Literary World loses a great Author

Jurassic Park...Timeline...Andromeda Strain...Coma...Congo

The mastermind behind all those big names has passed on to another world, leaving behind him a trail of stories which questioned and defied the laws of common nature.

Michael Crichton, died at the age of 66 after battling with cancer, on November 5th in Los Angeles. The author has left behind his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family, friends and many patron readers. Michael was a student of Harvard Medical School, where he had started writing. Some of his initial work as an author was under two different pseudonyms, John Lange and Jeffery Hudson. There was also a collaboration with his younger brother Douglas under the shared nom de plume Michael Douglas. He dropped his profession in medicine in 1970, when the pen began to dominate the stethoscope.
Crichton has to his credit more than a dozen best selling books, some of which I mentioned at the top, mostly under the category of science-fiction. But at times, he has swung to completely alienated genres and produced best-selling books such as "The Great Train Robbery" and "Disclosure". His work has sold over 150 million copies. Some of his novels have been captured as movies, for example Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Timeline, etc. and have broken box office records.

He is also the creator of "ER" , one of America's biggest Emmy award-winning medical drama TV series. The series is now into its 15th season(which started in Sep. 2008). Being aired on NBC, this show is set primarily in the emergency room of a fictional county hospital.
Crichton's work was an inspiration to many. Though "State of Fear" landed into some amount of controversy for challenging global warming, he was never afraid to challenge scientists from any field. He leaves behind his imprints on our minds and the zeal to ask "WHY" for any natural phenomenon.

For free downloads of some of Crichton's most famous books, click on the collage below: