151-473: OK ( / ˌ oʊ ˈ k eɪ / ), with spelling variations including okay , okeh , O.K. and many others , is an English word (originating in American English ) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on
302-642: A Gullah black spiritual dating from slavery days, was also introduced to wide audiences by Pete Seeger and the Weavers (in 1959), becoming a staple of Boy and Girl Scout campfires. In the late 1950s, the Kingston Trio was formed in direct imitation of (and homage to) the Weavers, covering much of the latter's repertoire, though with a more buttoned-down, uncontroversial, and mainstream collegiate persona. The Kingston Trio produced another phenomenal succession of Billboard chart hits and, in its turn, spawned
453-455: A Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul and Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963) while The Byrds had a number one hit with "Turn! Turn! Turn!" in 1965. Seeger was one of the folk singers responsible for popularizing the spiritual " We Shall Overcome " (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists), which became the acknowledged anthem of the civil rights movement , soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at
604-621: A March 26, 1957, indictment for contempt of Congress ; for some years, he had to keep the federal government apprised of where he was going any time he left the Southern District of New York. He was convicted in a jury trial of contempt of Congress in March 1961, and sentenced to ten one-year terms in jail (to be served simultaneously), but in May 1962, an appeals court ruled the indictment to be flawed and overturned his conviction. In 1960,
755-676: A Negro man, which was O.K.". The lawyer who successfully argued many Indian rights claims, Felix S. Cohen , supported the Jacksonian popularization of the term based on its Choctaw origin: When Andrew Jackson popularized a word that his Choctaw neighbors always used in their councils to signify agreement, the aristocrats he threw out of office, always grasping at a chance to ridicule backwoods illiteracy, accused him of abbreviating and misspelling "All Correct". But O.K. (or okeh, in Choctaw) does not mean "all correct"; it means that we have reached
906-561: A Negro man, which was O.K.". The lawyer who successfully argued many Indian rights claims, Felix S. Cohen , supported the Jacksonian popularization of the term based on its Choctaw origin: When Andrew Jackson popularized a word that his Choctaw neighbors always used in their councils to signify agreement, the aristocrats he threw out of office, always grasping at a chance to ridicule backwoods illiteracy, accused him of abbreviating and misspelling "All Correct". But O.K. (or okeh, in Choctaw) does not mean "all correct"; it means that we have reached
1057-416: A Negro," "You can't live here 'cause you're a Jew," "You can't work here 'cause you're a union man." So, Mr. President, We got this one big job to do That's lick Mr. Hitler and when we're through, Let no one else ever take his place To trample down the human race. So what I want is you to give me a gun So we can hurry up and get the job done. Seeger's critics, however, continued to bring up
1208-623: A Rendezvous with Death"), had been one of the first American soldiers to be killed in World War I . All four of Pete's half-siblings from his father's second marriage—Margaret (Peggy), Mike, Barbara, and Penelope (Penny)—became folk singers. Peggy Seeger , a well-known performer in her own right, married British folk singer and activist Ewan MacColl . Mike Seeger was a founder of the New Lost City Ramblers , one of whose members, John Cohen , married Pete's half-sister Penny, also
1359-614: A career in journalism and took courses in art as well. His first musical gig was leading students in folk singing at the Dalton School , where his aunt was principal. He polished his performance skills during a summer stint of touring New York state with the Vagabond Puppeteers (Jerry Oberwager, 22; Mary Wallace, 22; and Harriet Holtzman, 23), a traveling puppet theater "inspired by rural education campaigns of post-revolutionary Mexico". One of their shows coincided with
1510-788: A chorus of members of the Thälmann Battalion , made up of volunteers from Germany. The songs were "Moorsoldaten" (" Peat Bog Soldiers ", composed by political prisoners of German concentration camps); " Die Thaelmann-Kolonne ", "Hans Beimler", "Das Lied von der Einheitsfront" ("Song of the United Front" by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht ), "Lied der Internationalen Brigaden" ("Song of the International Brigades"), and "Los cuatro generales" ("The Four Generals", known in English as "The Four Insurgent Generals"). As
1661-419: A contrast to "bad" ("The boss approved this, so it is OK to send out"); it can also mean "mediocre" when used in contrast with "good" ("The french fries were great, but the burger was just OK"). It fulfills a similar role as an adverb ("Wow, you did OK for your first time skiing!"). As an interjection , it can denote compliance ("OK, I will do that"), or agreement ("OK, that is fine"). It can mean "assent" when it
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#17327871774071812-512: A controversial Almanac singer, the 21-year-old Seeger performed under the stage name "Pete Bowers" to avoid compromising his father's government career. In 1950, the Almanacs were reconstituted as the Weavers, named after the title of an 1892 play by Gerhart Hauptmann , about a workers' strike (which contained the lines "We'll stand it no more, come what may!"). They did benefits for strikers, at which they sang songs such as "Talking Union", about
1963-527: A covered baseball field. There the Seegers: watched square-dance teams from Bear Wallow , Happy Hollow, Cane Creek, Spooks Branch, Cheoah Valley, Bull Creek, and Soco Gap ; heard the five-string banjo player Samantha Bumgarner ; and family string bands, including a group of Indians from the Cherokee reservation who played string instruments and sang ballads. They wandered among the crowds who camped out at
2114-456: A fad in the late 1830s of abbreviating misspellings; that it is an initialism of " oll korrect " as a misspelling of "all correct". This origin was first described by linguist Allen Walker Read in the 1960s. As an adjective , OK principally means "adequate" or "acceptable" as a contrast to "bad" ("The boss approved this, so it is OK to send out"); it can also mean "mediocre" when used in contrast with "good" ("The french fries were great, but
2265-461: A favorite of Woody Guthrie, who was known to carry it around). Seeger toured Australia in 1963. His single " Little Boxes ", written by Malvina Reynolds, was number one in the nation's Top 40. That tour sparked a folk boom throughout the country at a time when popular music tastes, post– Kennedy assassination , competed between folk, the surfing craze , and the British rock boom that gave the world
2416-425: A folk "purist" who was one of the main opponents to Dylan's " going electric ", but when asked in 2001 about how he recalled his "objections" to the electric style, he said: I couldn't understand the words. I wanted to hear the words. It was a great song, " Maggie's Farm ," and the sound was distorted. I ran over to the guy at the controls and shouted, "Fix the sound so you can hear the words." He hollered back, "This
2567-610: A foreign language with a similar meaning and sound. Some examples are: Allen Walker Read identifies the earliest known use of O.K. in print as 1839, in the edition of 23 March of the Boston Morning Post . The announcement of a trip by the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society (a "frolicsome group" according to Read) received attention from the Boston papers. Charles Gordon Greene wrote about the event using
2718-648: A friend of his father's, at the Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress . Seeger's job was to help Lomax sift through commercial " race " and " hillbilly " music and select recordings that best represented American folk music, a project funded by the music division of the Pan American Union (later the Organization of American States ), of whose music division his father, Charles Seeger,
2869-510: A legion of imitators, laying the groundwork for the 1960s commercial folk revival. In the documentary film Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (2007), Seeger states that he resigned from the Weavers when the three other band members agreed to perform a jingle for a cigarette commercial . In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of How to Play the Five-String Banjo , a book that many banjo players credit with starting them off on
3020-544: A lover of Americana, played " Cindy " and " Old Joe Clark " with his students Charlie and Jackson Pollock ; friends from the " hillbilly " recording industry; and avant-garde composers Carl Ruggles and Henry Cowell . It was at one of Benton's parties that Pete heard " John Henry " for the first time. Seeger enrolled at Harvard College on a partial scholarship, but as he became increasingly involved with politics and folk music, his grades suffered and he lost his scholarship. He dropped out of college in 1938. He dreamed of
3171-459: A platoon on maneuvers in Louisiana during World War II. With its lyrics about a platoon being led into danger by an ignorant captain, the song's anti-war message was obvious—the line "the big fool said to push on" is repeated several times. In the face of arguments with the management of CBS about whether the song's political weight was in keeping with the usually light-hearted entertainment of
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#17327871774073322-559: A point where practical agreement is possible, however far from perfection it may lie. David Dalby brought up a 1941 reference dating the term to 1815. The apparent notation "we arrived ok" appears in the hand-written diary of William Richardson traveling from Boston to New Orleans about a month after the Battle of New Orleans . However, Frederic Cassidy asserts that he personally tracked down this diary, writing: After many attempts to track down this diary, Read and I at last discovered that it
3473-505: A point where practical agreement is possible, however far from perfection it may lie. David Dalby brought up a 1941 reference dating the term to 1815. The apparent notation "we arrived ok" appears in the hand-written diary of William Richardson traveling from Boston to New Orleans about a month after the Battle of New Orleans . However, Frederic Cassidy asserts that he personally tracked down this diary, writing: After many attempts to track down this diary, Read and I at last discovered that it
3624-437: A question. Mr Read treated such doubting calmly. "Nothing is absolute," he once wrote, "nothing is forever." In "All Mixed Up", the folk singer Pete Seeger sang that OK was of Choctaw origin, as the dictionaries of the time tended to agree. Three major American reference works (Webster's, New Century, Funk & Wagnalls) cited this etymology as the probable origin until as late as 1961. The earliest written evidence for
3775-537: A resonant chord between two precise notes, a melody note and a chiming note on the fifth string", Pete Seeger "gentrified" the more percussive traditional Appalachian "frailing" style, "with its vigorous hammering of the forearm and its percussive rapping of the fingernail on the banjo head". Although what Dunaway's informant describes is the age-old droned frailing style, the implication is that Seeger made this more acceptable to mass audiences by omitting some of its percussive complexities, while presumably still preserving
3926-465: A response, 200 OK , which conveys success for most requests (RFC 3261). Some Linux distributions , including those based on Red Hat Linux , display boot progress on successive lines on-screen, which include [ OK ] . Several Unicode characters are related to visual renderings of OK: Okay#Variations OK ( / ˌ oʊ ˈ k eɪ / ), with spelling variations including okay , okeh , O.K. and many others ,
4077-456: A response, 200 OK , which conveys success for most requests (RFC 3261). Some Linux distributions , including those based on Red Hat Linux , display boot progress on successive lines on-screen, which include [ OK ] . Several Unicode characters are related to visual renderings of OK: Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer-songwriter, musician and social activist. He
4228-694: A retired missionary) that various West African languages have near-homophone discourse markers with meanings such as "yes indeed" or which serve as part of the back-channeling repertoire. Frederic Cassidy challenged Dalby's claims, asserting that there is no documentary evidence that any of these African-language words had any causal link with its use in the American press. The West African hypothesis had not been accepted by 1981 by any etymologists, yet has since appeared in scholarly sources published by linguists and non-linguists alike. A large number of origins have been proposed. Some of them are thought to fall into
4379-672: A self-described "split tenor" (between a tenor and a countertenor), Pete Seeger was a founding member of two highly influential folk groups: the Almanac Singers and the Weavers . The Almanac Singers, which Seeger co-founded in 1941 with Millard Lampell and Arkansas singer and activist Lee Hays , was a topical group, designed to function as a singing newspaper promoting the industrial unionization movement, racial and religious inclusion, and other progressive causes. Its personnel included, at various times: Woody Guthrie, Bess Lomax Hawes , Sis Cunningham , Josh White , and Sam Gary . As
4530-591: A strike by dairy farmers. The group reprised its act in October in New York City. An article in the October 2, 1939, Daily Worker reported on the Puppeteers' six-week tour this way: During the entire trip the group never ate once in a restaurant. They slept out at night under the stars and cooked their own meals in the open, very often they were the guests of farmers. At rural affairs and union meetings,
4681-824: A talented singer, who died young. Barbara Seeger joined her siblings in recording folk songs for children. In 1935, Pete attended Camp Rising Sun , an international leadership camp held every summer in upstate New York, which influenced his life's work. His final visit occurred in 2012. At four, Seeger was sent away to boarding school, but came home two years later when his parents learned the school had failed to inform them he had contracted scarlet fever . He attended first and second grades in Nyack, New York , where his mother lived, before entering boarding school in Ridgefield, Connecticut . Despite being classical musicians, his parents did not press him to play an instrument. On his own,
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4832-762: A third-party candidate on the Progressive Party ticket. Despite having attracted enormous crowds nationwide, however, Wallace did not win any electoral votes, and following the election, he was excoriated for accepting the help in his campaign of Communists and fellow travelers, such as Seeger and singer Paul Robeson . Seeger had been a fervent supporter of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War . In 1943, with Tom Glazer and Bess and Baldwin Hawes, he recorded an album of 78s called Songs of
4983-491: A versatile discourse marker or continuer , it can also be used with appropriate intonation to show doubt or to seek confirmation ("OK?", "Is that OK?"). Some of this variation in use and shape of the word is also found in other languages. Many explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, but few have been discussed seriously by linguists . The following proposals have found mainstream recognition. The etymology that most reference works provide today
5134-459: Is a Jamaican planter's diary of 1816, which records a black slave saying "Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him". Cassidy asserts that this is a misreading of the source, which actually begins "Oh, ki, massa ...", where ki is a phrase by itself: In all other examples of this interjection that I have found, it is simply ki (once spelled kie ). As here, it expresses surprise, amusement, satisfaction, mild expostulation, and
5285-458: Is a Jamaican planter's diary of 1816, which records a black slave saying "Oh ki, massa, doctor no need be fright, we no want to hurt him". Cassidy asserts that this is a misreading of the source, which actually begins "Oh, ki, massa ...", where ki is a phrase by itself: In all other examples of this interjection that I have found, it is simply ki (once spelled kie ). As here, it expresses surprise, amusement, satisfaction, mild expostulation, and
5436-429: Is actually in the manuscript", later recanted his endorsement of the expression, asserting that it was used no earlier than 1839. Mencken (following Read) described the diary entry as a misreading of the author's self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h[andsome] before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind. Another example given by Dalby
5587-427: Is actually in the manuscript", later recanted his endorsement of the expression, asserting that it was used no earlier than 1839. Mencken (following Read) described the diary entry as a misreading of the author's self-correction, and stated it was in reality the first two letters of the words a h[andsome] before noticing the phrase had been used in the previous line and changing his mind. Another example given by Dalby
5738-411: Is an English word (originating in American English ) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet. The origin of OK is disputed; however, most modern reference works hold that it originated around Boston as part of
5889-430: Is based on a survey of the word's early history in print: a series of six articles by Allen Walker Read in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964. He tracked the spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later throughout the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding OK and the history of its folk etymologies , both of which are intertwined with
6040-562: Is important is what we got to do, We got to lick Mr. Hitler, and until we do, Other things can wait. Now, as I think of our great land ... I know it ain't perfect, but it will be someday, Just give us a little time. This is the reason that I want to fight, Not 'cause everything's perfect, or everything's right. No, it's just the opposite: I'm fightin' because I want a better America, and better laws, And better homes, and jobs, and schools, And no more Jim Crow, and no more rules like "You can't ride on this train 'cause you're
6191-430: Is leading an unwilling people into a J.P. Morgan war". Eleanor Roosevelt, a fan of folk music, reportedly found the album "in bad taste", though President Roosevelt, when the album was shown to him, merely observed, correctly, as it turned out, that few people would ever hear it. More alarmist was the reaction of eminent German-born Harvard Professor of Government Carl Joachim Friedrich , an adviser on domestic propaganda to
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6342-504: Is owned by the grandson of the original writer, Professor L. Richardson, Jr., of the Department of Classical Studies at Duke University. Through his courtesy we were able to examine this manuscript carefully, to make greatly enlarged photographs of it, and to become convinced (as is Richardson) that, whatever the marks in the manuscript are, they are not OK. Similarly, H. L. Mencken , who originally considered it "very clear that 'o. k.'
6493-444: Is owned by the grandson of the original writer, Professor L. Richardson, Jr., of the Department of Classical Studies at Duke University. Through his courtesy we were able to examine this manuscript carefully, to make greatly enlarged photographs of it, and to become convinced (as is Richardson) that, whatever the marks in the manuscript are, they are not OK. Similarly, H. L. Mencken , who originally considered it "very clear that 'o. k.'
6644-513: Is the way they want it." I said "Damn it, if I had an axe, I'd cut the cable right now." But I was at fault. I was the MC, and I could have said to the part of the crowd that booed Bob, "you didn't boo Howlin' Wolf yesterday. He was electric!" Though I still prefer to hear Dylan acoustic, some of his electric songs are absolutely great. Electric music is the vernacular of the second half of the twentieth century, to use my father's old term. One version of
6795-451: Is used as a noun ("the boss gave her the OK to the purchase") or, more colloquially, as a verb ("the boss OKed the purchase"). OK , as an adjective, can express acknowledgement without approval. As a versatile discourse marker or continuer , it can also be used with appropriate intonation to show doubt or to seek confirmation ("OK?", "Is that OK?"). Some of this variation in use and shape of
6946-655: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , the final lines were "Every time I read the paper/those old feelings come on/We are waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on." The lyrics could be interpreted as an allegory of Johnson as the "big fool" and the Vietnam War as the foreseeable danger. Although the performance was cut from the September 1967 show, after wide publicity, it
7097-639: The 12-string guitar , an instrument of Mexican origin that had been associated with Lead Belly , who had styled himself "the King of the 12-String Guitar". Seeger's distinctive custom-made guitars had a triangular soundhole. He combined the long scale length (approximately 28") and capo -to-key techniques that he favored on the banjo with a variant of drop-D (DADGBE) tuning , tuned two whole steps down with very heavy strings, which he played with thumb and finger picks. In 1956, Seeger and his wife, Toshi, traveled to Port of Spain , Trinidad , to seek out information on
7248-601: The American Songbag (1927), and later created significant original settings for eight of Sandburg's poems. Pete's eldest brother, Charles Seeger III, was a radio astronomer, and his next older brother, John Seeger, taught in the 1950s at the Dalton School in Manhattan and was the principal from 1960 to 1976 at Fieldston Lower School in the Bronx . Pete's uncle, Alan Seeger , a noted American war poet ("I Have
7399-668: The Democratic political party claimed during the 1840 United States presidential election that it stood for "Old Kinderhook", a nickname for the Democratic president and candidate for reelection, Martin Van Buren , a native of Kinderhook, New York . "Vote for OK" was snappier than using his Dutch name. In response, Whig opponents attributed OK , in the sense of "Oll Korrect", to the bad spelling of Andrew Jackson , Van Buren's predecessor. The country-wide publicity surrounding
7550-531: The New School for Social Research . Career and money tensions led to quarrels and reconciliations, but when Charles discovered Constance had opened a secret bank account in her own name, they separated, and Charles took custody of their three sons. Beginning in 1936, Charles held various administrative positions in the federal government's Farm Resettlement program , the WPA 's Federal Music Project (1938–1940) and
7701-577: The Puritan , Calvinist New England tradition", traced its genealogy back over 200 years. A paternal ancestor, Karl Ludwig Seeger, a physician from Württemberg , Germany, had emigrated to America during the American Revolution and married into the old New England family of Parsons in the 1780s. Seeger's father, the Harvard -trained composer and musicologist Charles Louis Seeger Jr. ,
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#17327871774077852-623: The San Diego school board told him that he could not play a scheduled concert at a high school unless he signed an oath pledging that the concert would not be used to promote a communist agenda or an overthrow of the government. Seeger refused, and the American Civil Liberties Union obtained an injunction against the school district, allowing the concert to go on as scheduled. Almost 50 years later, in February 2009,
8003-479: The Southeastern United States by a tribe with significant contact with African slaves. The major language of trade in this area, Mobilian Jargon , was based on Choctaw-Chickasaw, two Muskogean -family languages. This language was used, in particular, for communication with the slave-owning Cherokee (an Iroquoian -family language). For the three decades prior to the Boston abbreviation fad,
8154-680: The instrument . He went on to invent the long-neck or Seeger banjo. This instrument is three frets longer than a typical banjo, is slightly longer than a bass guitar at 25 frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal 5-string banjo. Hitherto strictly limited to the Appalachian region, the five-string banjo became known nationwide as the American folk instrument par excellence, largely thanks to Seeger's championing of and improvements to it. According to an unnamed musician quoted in David King Dunaway 's biography, "by nesting
8305-538: The steelpan , sometimes called a steel drum, or "ping-pong". The two searched out a local panyard director, Isaiah, and proceeded to film the construction, tuning and playing of the then-new national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. He was attempting to include the unique flavor of the steelpan in American folk music. In the 1950s, and indeed consistently throughout his life, Seeger continued his support of civil and labor rights, racial equality, international understanding, and anti-militarism (all of which had characterized
8456-399: The 1965 Newport Folk Festival that he threatened to disconnect the equipment. There are multiple versions of what went on, some fanciful. What is certain is that tensions had been running high between Dylan's manager Albert Grossman and Festival board members (who besides Seeger also included Theodore Bikel , Bruce Jackson , Alan Lomax , festival MC Peter Yarrow , and George Wein ) over
8607-435: The 1993 book The African Heritage of American English (co-written with a retired missionary) that various West African languages have near-homophone discourse markers with meanings such as "yes indeed" or which serve as part of the back-channeling repertoire. Frederic Cassidy challenged Dalby's claims, asserting that there is no documentary evidence that any of these African-language words had any causal link with its use in
8758-579: The 50-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, along with 1,000 other marchers. By this time, Seeger was a senior figure in the 1960s folk revival centered in Greenwich Village , as a longtime columnist in Sing Out! , the successor to the People's Songs Bulletin , and as a founder of the topical Broadside magazine. To describe the new crop of politically committed folk singers, he coined
8909-642: The Almanacs cut several albums of 78s on Keynote and other labels: Songs for John Doe (recorded in late February or March and released in May 1941), Talking Union , and an album each of sea shanties and pioneer songs. Written by Millard Lampell, Songs for John Doe was performed by Lampell, Seeger, and Hays, joined by Josh White and Sam Gary. It contained lines, such as "It wouldn't be much thrill to die for Du Pont in Brazil," that were sharply critical of Roosevelt 's unprecedented peacetime draft (enacted in September 1940). This anti-war/anti-draft tone reflected
9060-408: The Almanacs had been, and its progressive message was couched in indirect language. The Weavers on occasion performed in tuxedos (unlike the Almanacs, who had dressed informally) and their managers refused to let them perform at political venues. The Weavers' string of major hits began with " On Top of Old Smoky " and an arrangement of Lead Belly 's signature waltz, " Goodnight, Irene ", which topped
9211-648: The Almanacs' repudiated Songs for John Doe . In 1942, a year after the John Doe album's brief appearance (and disappearance), the FBI decided that the now-pro-war Almanacs were still endangering the war effort by subverting recruitment. According to the New York World Telegram (February 14, 1942), Carl Friedrich's 1941 article "The Poison in Our System" was printed up as a pamphlet and distributed by
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#17327871774079362-411: The American press. The West African hypothesis had not been accepted by 1981 by any etymologists, yet has since appeared in scholarly sources published by linguists and non-linguists alike. A large number of origins have been proposed. Some of them are thought to fall into the category of folk etymology and are proposed based merely on apparent similarity between OK and one or another phrase in
9513-469: The Beatles and The Rolling Stones , among others. Folk clubs sprang up all over the nation; folk performers were accepted in established venues; Australian performers singing Australian folk songs—many of their own composing—emerged in concerts and festivals, on television, and on recordings; and overseas performers were encouraged to tour Australia. The long television blacklist of Seeger began to end in
9664-526: The Beers Family, Roscoe Holcomb , Malvina Reynolds , Sonia Malkine, and Shawn Phillips . Thirty-nine hour-long programs were recorded at WNJU 's Newark studios in 1965 and 1966, produced by Seeger and his wife Toshi, with Sholom Rubinstein. The Smothers Brothers ended Seeger's national blacklisting by broadcasting him singing " Waist Deep in the Big Muddy " on their CBS variety show on February 25, 1968, after his similar performance in September 1967
9815-527: The Bible with the particle "okeh", meaning "it is so", which was listed as an alternative spelling in the 1913 Webster's. Byington's Dictionary of the Choctaw Language confirms the ubiquity of the "okeh" particle, and his Grammar of the Choctaw Language calls the particle -keh an "affirmative contradistinctive", with the "distinctive" o- prefix. Subsequent Choctaw spelling books de-emphasized
9966-540: The Boston abbreviation fad, the Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the U.S. government, after having fought alongside them at the Battle of New Orleans . Arguments for a more Southern origin for the word note the tendency of English to adopt loan words in language contact situations, as well as the ubiquity of the OK particle. Similar particles exist in native language groups distinct from Iroquoian ( Algonquian , Cree cf. " ekosi "). An early attestation of
10117-399: The Boston newspaper's reference to OK may not be the earliest. Some are attracted to the claim that it is of American-Indian origin. There is an Indian word, okeh, used as an affirmative reply to a question. Mr Read treated such doubting calmly. "Nothing is absolute," he once wrote, "nothing is forever." In "All Mixed Up", the folk singer Pete Seeger sang that OK was of Choctaw origin, as
10268-490: The Boston papers. Charles Gordon Greene wrote about the event using the line that is widely regarded as the first instance of this strain of OK , complete with gloss : The above is from the Providence Journal , the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing "through the city" of Providence.—We said our brethren were going to New York in
10419-549: The Choctaw Language calls the particle -keh an "affirmative contradistinctive", with the "distinctive" o- prefix. Subsequent Choctaw spelling books de-emphasized the spellings lists in favor of straight prose, and they made use of the particle[,] but they too never included it in the word lists or discussed it directly. The presumption was that the use of particle "oke" or "hoke" was so common and self-evident as to preclude any need for explanation or discussion for either its Choctaw or non-Choctaw readership. The Choctaw language
10570-455: The Choctaw had been in extensive negotiation with the U.S. government, after having fought alongside them at the Battle of New Orleans . Arguments for a more Southern origin for the word note the tendency of English to adopt loan words in language contact situations, as well as the ubiquity of the OK particle. Similar particles exist in native language groups distinct from Iroquoian ( Algonquian , Cree cf. " ekosi "). An early attestation of
10721-478: The Choctaw origin is provided in work by the Christian missionaries Cyrus Byington and Alfred Wright in 1825. These missionaries ended many sentences in their translation of the Bible with the particle "okeh", meaning "it is so", which was listed as an alternative spelling in the 1913 Webster's. Byington's Dictionary of the Choctaw Language confirms the ubiquity of the "okeh" particle, and his Grammar of
10872-644: The Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train -band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k. —all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks , upward. Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print. Seven instances were accompanied with glosses that were variations on "all correct" such as "oll korrect" or "ole kurreck", but five appeared with no accompanying explanation, suggesting that
11023-634: The Communist Party line after the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , which maintained that the war was "phony" and a mere pretext for big American corporations to get Hitler to attack Soviet Russia. Seeger has said he believed this line of argument at the time, as did many fellow members of the Young Communist League (YCL). Though nominally members of the Popular Front , which was allied with Roosevelt and more moderate liberals,
11174-678: The Council for Democracy (an organization that Friedrich and Henry Luce 's right-hand man, C. D. Jackson , Vice President of Time magazine, had founded "to combat all the Nazi, fascist, communist, pacifist" antiwar groups in the United States). Seeger served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific . He was trained as an airplane mechanic, but was reassigned to entertain the American troops with music. Later, when people asked him what he did in
11325-624: The Flowers Gone? " (with additional lyrics by Joe Hickerson ), " If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" (with Lee Hays of the Weavers), " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine " (also with Hays), and " Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962); Marlene Dietrich , who recorded it in English, German and French (1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had
11476-720: The Lincoln Battalion on Moe Asch's Stinson label. This included such songs as " There's a Valley in Spain Called Jarama " and " Viva la Quince Brigada ". In 1960, this collection was re-issued by Moe Asch as one side of a Folkways LP called Songs of the Lincoln and International Brigades . On the other side was a reissue of the legendary Six Songs for Democracy (originally recorded in Barcelona in 1938 while bombs were falling), performed by Ernst Busch and
11627-768: The Newport Festival controversy, as well as a glowing depiction of Seeger's early 1960s efforts to boost an unknown Bob Dylan, is dramatized in the 2024 feature film A Complete Unknown , where Edward Norton plays Pete Seeger. A longstanding opponent of the arms race and of the Vietnam War, Seeger satirically attacked then-President Lyndon Johnson with his 1966 recording, on the album Dangerous Songs!? , of Len Chandler 's children's song " Beans in My Ears ". Beyond Chandler's lyrics, Seeger said that "Mrs. Jay's little son Alby" had "beans in his ears", which, as
11778-661: The Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday. The "Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells," is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his train -band, would have his "contribution box," et ceteras, o.k. —all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks , upward. Read gives a number of subsequent appearances in print. Seven instances were accompanied with glosses that were variations on "all correct" such as "oll korrect" or "ole kurreck", but five appeared with no accompanying explanation, suggesting that
11929-519: The San Diego School District officially extended an apology to Seeger for the actions of its predecessors. To earn money during the blacklist period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Seeger worked gigs as a music teacher in schools and summer camps, and traveled the college campus circuit. He also recorded as many as five albums a year for Moe Asch 's Folkways Records label. As the nuclear disarmament movement picked up steam in
12080-497: The United States and much of Europe a related gesture is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers. It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first. The gesture was popularized in the United States in 1840 as a symbol to support then-presidential candidate and incumbent vice president Martin Van Buren. This
12231-433: The United States and much of Europe a related gesture is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers. It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first. The gesture was popularized in the United States in 1840 as a symbol to support then-presidential candidate and incumbent vice president Martin Van Buren. This
12382-466: The United States military. In a review in the June 1941 Atlantic Monthly , entitled "The Poison in Our System", he pronounced Songs for John Doe "strictly subversive and illegal", "whether Communist or Nazi financed", and "a matter for the attorney general", observing further that "mere" legal "suppression" would not be sufficient to counteract this type of populist poison, the poison being folk music and
12533-603: The Wallace campaign), and he continued to believe that songs could help people achieve these goals. However, with the ever-growing revelations of Joseph Stalin 's atrocities and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , he became increasingly disillusioned with Soviet Socialism. He left the CPUSA in 1949, but remained friends with some who did not leave it, although he argued with them about it. On August 18, 1955, Seeger
12684-616: The YCL's members still smarted from Roosevelt and Churchill 's arms embargo on Loyalist Spain (which Roosevelt later called a mistake), and the alliance frayed in the confusing welter of events. A June 16, 1941, review in Time magazine, which, under its owner, Henry Luce , had become very interventionist, denounced the Almanacs' John Doe , accusing it of scrupulously echoing what it called "the mendacious Moscow tune" that "Franklin Roosevelt
12835-510: The abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright." The general fad is speculated to have existed in spoken or informal written U.S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. OK ' s original presentation as "all correct" was later varied with spellings such as "Oll Korrect" or even "Ole Kurreck". The term appears to have achieved national prominence in 1840, when supporters of
12986-418: The beauty of this music firsthand was a "conversion experience". Pete was deeply affected and, after learning basic strokes from Lunsford, spent much of the next four years trying to master the five-string banjo. The teenage Seeger also sometimes accompanied his parents to regular Saturday evening gatherings at the Greenwich Village loft of painter and art teacher Thomas Hart Benton and his wife Rita. Benton,
13137-455: The burger was just OK"). It fulfills a similar role as an adverb ("Wow, you did OK for your first time skiing!"). As an interjection , it can denote compliance ("OK, I will do that"), or agreement ("OK, that is fine"). It can mean "assent" when it is used as a noun ("the boss gave her the OK to the purchase") or, more colloquially, as a verb ("the boss OKed the purchase"). OK , as an adjective, can express acknowledgement without approval. As
13288-468: The category of folk etymology and are proposed based merely on apparent similarity between OK and one or another phrase in a foreign language with a similar meaning and sound. Some examples are: Allen Walker Read identifies the earliest known use of O.K. in print as 1839, in the edition of 23 March of the Boston Morning Post . The announcement of a trip by the Anti-Bell-Ringing Society (a "frolicsome group" according to Read) received attention from
13439-401: The characteristic driving rhythmic quality associated with the style. Inspired by his mentor Woody Guthrie, whose guitar was labeled " This machine kills fascists ", Seeger emblazoned his banjo head in 1952 with the slogan "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender", writing those words on every subsequent banjo he owned. From the late 1950s on, Seeger also accompanied himself on
13590-539: The charts for 13 weeks in 1950 and was covered by many other pop singers. On the flip side of "Irene" was the Israeli song " Tzena, Tzena, Tzena ". Other Weavers hits included "Dusty Old Dust" ("So Long It's Been Good to Know You" by Woody Guthrie) , " Kisses Sweeter Than Wine " (by Hays, Seeger, and Lead Belly), and the Zulu song by Solomon Linda , " Wimoweh " (about Shaka ), among others. The Weavers' performing career
13741-487: The dialog box contains only one button, it is almost always labeled OK . When there are two buttons, they are most commonly labeled OK and Cancel . OK is commonly rendered in upper case and without punctuation: OK , rather than O.K. or Okay. The OK button can probably be traced to user interface research done for the Apple Lisa . The Forth programming language prints ok when ready to accept input from
13892-428: The dialog box contains only one button, it is almost always labeled OK . When there are two buttons, they are most commonly labeled OK and Cancel . OK is commonly rendered in upper case and without punctuation: OK , rather than O.K. or Okay. The OK button can probably be traced to user interface research done for the Apple Lisa . The Forth programming language prints ok when ready to accept input from
14043-408: The dictionaries of the time tended to agree. Three major American reference works (Webster's, New Century, Funk & Wagnalls) cited this etymology as the probable origin until as late as 1961. The earliest written evidence for the Choctaw origin is provided in work by the Christian missionaries Cyrus Byington and Alfred Wright in 1825. These missionaries ended many sentences in their translation of
14194-799: The ease with which it could be spread. While the U.S. had not officially declared war on the Axis powers in the summer of 1941, the country was energetically producing arms and ammunition for its allies overseas. Despite the boom in manufacturing this concerted rearming effort brought, African Americans were barred from working in defense plants. Racial tensions rose as Black labor leaders (such as A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin ) and their white allies began organizing protests and marches. To combat this social unrest, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 (the Fair Employment Act) on 25 June 1941. The order came three days after Hitler broke
14345-456: The edge of the field, hearing music being made there as well. As Lunsford's daughter would later recall, those country people "held the riches that Dad had discovered. They could sing, fiddle, pick the banjos, and guitars with traditional grace and style found nowhere else but deep in the mountains. I can still hear those haunting melodies drift over the ball park." For the Seegers, experiencing
14496-510: The election appears to have been a critical event in OK ' s history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States. Read proposed an etymology of OK in "Old Kinderhook" in 1941. The evidence presented in that article was somewhat sparse, and the connection to "Oll Korrect" not fully elucidated. Various challenges to the etymology were presented; e.g., Heflin's 1962 article. However, Read's landmark 1963–1964 papers silenced most of
14647-447: The farm women would bring "suppers" and would vie with each other to see who could feed the troupe most, and after the affair the farmers would have earnest discussions about who would have the honor of taking them home for the night. "They fed us too well", the girls reported. "And we could live the entire winter just by taking advantage of all the offers to spend a week on the farm". In the farmers' homes they talked about politics and
14798-458: The farmers' problems, about antisemitism and Unionism, about war and peace and social security—"and always", the puppeteers report, "the farmers wanted to know what can be done to create a stronger unity between themselves and city workers". They felt the need of this more strongly than ever before, and the support of the CIO in their milk strike has given them a new understanding and a new respect for
14949-662: The founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In the PBS American Masters episode " Pete Seeger: The Power of Song ", Seeger said it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome". Seeger was born on May 3, 1919, at the French Hospital , in New York City. His family, which Seeger called "enormously Christian, in
15100-480: The grounds that this would violate his First Amendment rights: "I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this." Seeger's refusal to answer questions that he believed violated his fundamental constitutional rights led to
15251-447: The history of the word itself. Read argues that, at the time of the expression's first appearance in print, a broader fad existed in the United States of "comical misspellings" and of forming and employing acronyms, themselves based on colloquial speech patterns: The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 ... and used expressions like OFM, "our first men," NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." Many of
15402-723: The keyboard. This prompt is used on Sun , Apple , and other computers with the Forth-based Open Firmware (OpenBoot) . The appearance of ok in inappropriate contexts is the subject of some humor. In the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), upon which the World Wide Web is based, a successful response from the server is defined as OK (with the numerical code 200 as specified in RFC 2616). The Session Initiation Protocol also defines
15553-450: The keyboard. This prompt is used on Sun , Apple , and other computers with the Forth-based Open Firmware (OpenBoot) . The appearance of ok in inappropriate contexts is the subject of some humor. In the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), upon which the World Wide Web is based, a successful response from the server is defined as OK (with the numerical code 200 as specified in RFC 2616). The Session Initiation Protocol also defines
15704-580: The late 1950s and early 1960s, Seeger's anti-war songs, such as " Where Have All the Flowers Gone? " (co-written with Joe Hickerson ), " Turn! Turn! Turn! " adapted from the Book of Ecclesiastes , and " The Bells of Rhymney " by the Welsh poet Idris Davies (1957), gained wide currency. Seeger was the first person to make a studio recording of " Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream " in 1956. Seeger also
15855-560: The like. It has nothing like the meaning of the adjective OK, which in the earliest recorded examples means 'all right, good,' though it later acquires other meanings, but even when used as an interjection does not express surprise, expostulation, or anything similar. Whether this word is printed as OK, Ok, ok, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage provide no consensus. In
16006-558: The like. It has nothing like the meaning of the adjective OK, which in the earliest recorded examples means 'all right, good,' though it later acquires other meanings, but even when used as an interjection does not express surprise, expostulation, or anything similar. Whether this word is printed as OK, Ok, ok, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage provide no consensus. In
16157-427: The line that is widely regarded as the first instance of this strain of OK , complete with gloss : The above is from the Providence Journal , the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing "through the city" of Providence.—We said our brethren were going to New York in the Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday. The "Chairman of
16308-450: The lyrics imply, ensures that a person does not hear what is said to them. To those opposed to continuing the Vietnam War , the phrase implied that "Alby Jay", a loose pronunciation of Johnson's nickname "LBJ", did not listen to anti-war protests as he too had "beans in his ears". During 1966, Seeger and Malvina Reynolds took part in environmental activism. The album God Bless the Grass
16459-565: The mid-1960s when he hosted a regionally broadcast educational folk-music television show, Rainbow Quest . Among his guests were Johnny Cash , June Carter , Reverend Gary Davis , Mississippi John Hurt , Doc Watson , the Stanley Brothers , Elizabeth Cotten , Patrick Sky , Buffy Sainte-Marie , Tom Paxton , Judy Collins , Hedy West , Donovan , The Clancy Brothers , Richard Fariña and Mimi Fariña , Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee , Mamou Cajun Band, Bernice Johnson Reagon ,
16610-498: The non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union, at which time the Communist Party quickly directed its members to get behind the draft and forbade participation in strikes for the duration of the war—angering some leftists. Copies of Songs for John Doe were removed from sale, and the remaining inventory destroyed, though a few copies may exist in the hands of private collectors. The Almanac Singers' Talking Union album, on
16761-436: The other hand, was reissued as an LP by Folkways (FH 5285A) in 1955 and is still available. The following year, the Almanacs issued Dear Mr. President , an album in support of Roosevelt and the war effort. The title song, "Dear Mr. President", was a solo by Pete Seeger, and its lines expressed his lifelong credo: Now, Mr. President, We haven't always agreed in the past, I know, But that ain't at all important now. What
16912-612: The otherwise bookish and withdrawn boy gravitated to the ukulele , becoming adept at entertaining his classmates with it while laying the basis for his subsequent remarkable audience rapport. At thirteen, Seeger enrolled in the Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut , from which he graduated in 1936. He was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun , the George E. Jonas Foundation 's international summer leadership program. During
17063-598: The particle 'kay' is found in a 1784 transcription of a North Carolina slave, who, seeking to avoid being flogged, explained being found asleep in the canoe he had been ordered to bring to a certain place to pick up a European exploring near his newly-purchased property : Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe; but me fall asleep... A West African (Mande and/or Bantu) etymology has been argued in scholarly sources, tracing
17214-597: The particle 'kay' is found in a 1784 transcription of a North Carolina slave, who, seeking to avoid being flogged, explained being found asleep in the canoe he had been ordered to bring to a certain place to pick up a European exploring near his newly-purchased property : Kay, massa, you just leave me, me sit here, great fish jump up into da canoe, here he be, massa, fine fish, massa; me den very grad; den me sit very still, until another great fish jump into de canoe; but me fall asleep... A West African (Mande and/or Bantu) etymology has been argued in scholarly sources, tracing
17365-737: The phrase "Woody's children", alluding to his associate and traveling companion, Woody Guthrie, who by this time had become a legendary figure. This urban folk-revival movement, a continuation of the activist tradition of the 1930s and 1940s and of People's Songs , used adaptations of traditional tunes and lyrics to effect social change, a practice that goes back to the Industrial Workers of the World or Wobblies' Little Red Song Book , compiled by Swedish-born union organizer Joe Hill (1879–1915) (the Little Red Song Book had been
17516-418: The planet. The origin of OK is disputed; however, most modern reference works hold that it originated around Boston as part of a fad in the late 1830s of abbreviating misspellings; that it is an initialism of " oll korrect " as a misspelling of "all correct". This origin was first described by linguist Allen Walker Read in the 1960s. As an adjective , OK principally means "adequate" or "acceptable" as
17667-550: The power that lies in solidarity. One summer has convinced us that a minimum of organized effort on the part of city organizations—unions, consumers' bodies, the American Labor Party and similar groups—can not only reach the farmers but weld them into a pretty solid front with city folks that will be one of the best guarantees for progress. That fall, Seeger took a job in Washington, D.C., assisting Alan Lomax ,
17818-662: The progressive City and Country School in Greenwich Village , New York. In 1936, at the age of 17, Pete Seeger joined the Young Communist League (YCL), then at the height of its influence. In 1942, he became a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) itself, but he left in 1949. In the spring of 1941, the twenty-one-year-old Seeger performed as a member of the Almanac Singers along with Millard Lampell, Cisco Houston , Woody Guthrie , Butch Hawes and Bess Lomax Hawes , and Lee Hays. Seeger and
17969-400: The scheduling of performers and other matters. Two days earlier, there had been a scuffle and a brief exchange of blows between Grossman and Alan Lomax, and the board, in an emergency session, had voted to ban Grossman from the grounds, but had backed off when George Wein pointed out that Grossman also managed highly popular draws Odetta and Peter, Paul and Mary . Seeger has been portrayed as
18120-415: The skepticism. Read's etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is now offered without reservation in most dictionaries. Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations: Some believe that the Boston newspaper's reference to OK may not be the earliest. Some are attracted to the claim that it is of American-Indian origin. There is an Indian word, okeh, used as an affirmative reply to
18271-428: The spellings lists in favor of straight prose, and they made use of the particle[,] but they too never included it in the word lists or discussed it directly. The presumption was that the use of particle "oke" or "hoke" was so common and self-evident as to preclude any need for explanation or discussion for either its Choctaw or non-Choctaw readership. The Choctaw language was one of the languages spoken at this time in
18422-567: The spread and evolution of the word in American newspapers and other written documents, and later throughout the rest of the world. He also documented controversy surrounding OK and the history of its folk etymologies , both of which are intertwined with the history of the word itself. Read argues that, at the time of the expression's first appearance in print, a broader fad existed in the United States of "comical misspellings" and of forming and employing acronyms, themselves based on colloquial speech patterns: The abbreviation fad began in Boston in
18573-450: The struggles for unionisation of industrial workers such as miners and automobile workers. Besides Pete Seeger (performing under his own name), members of the Weavers included charter Almanac member Lee Hays, Ronnie Gilbert , and Fred Hellerman ; later Frank Hamilton , Erik Darling , and Bernie Krause serially took Seeger's place. In the atmosphere of the 1950s red scare, the Weavers' repertoire had to be less overtly topical than that of
18724-487: The summer of 1838 ... and used expressions like OFM, "our first men," NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes." Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright." The general fad is speculated to have existed in spoken or informal written U.S. English for a decade or more before its appearance in newspapers. OK ' s original presentation as "all correct"
18875-470: The summer of 1936, while traveling with his father and stepmother, Pete heard the five-string banjo for the first time at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in western North Carolina near Asheville , organized by local folklorist , lecturer, and traditional music performer Bascom Lamar Lunsford , whom Charles Seeger had hired for Farm Resettlement music projects. The festival took place in
19026-542: The war, he always answered: "I strummed my banjo." After returning from service, Seeger and others established People's Songs , conceived as a nationwide organization with branches on both coasts and designed to "create, promote and distribute songs of labor and the American People". With Pete Seeger as its director, People's Songs worked for the 1948 presidential campaign of Roosevelt's former Secretary of Agriculture and Vice President, Henry A. Wallace , who ran as
19177-585: The wartime Pan American Union . After World War II , he taught ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University . Charles and Constance divorced when Pete was seven and in 1932 Charles married his composition student and assistant, Ruth Crawford , now considered by many to be one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century. Deeply interested in folk music, Ruth had contributed musical arrangements to Carl Sandburg 's extremely influential folk song anthology,
19328-503: The word back to the Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke . David Dalby first made the claim that the particle OK could have African origins in the 1969 Hans Wolff Memorial Lecture. His argument was reprinted in various newspaper articles between 1969 and 1971. This suggestion has also been mentioned by Joseph Holloway, who argued in
19479-472: The word back to the Wolof and Bantu word waw-kay or the Mande (aka "Mandinke" or "Mandingo") phrase o ke . David Dalby first made the claim that the particle OK could have African origins in the 1969 Hans Wolff Memorial Lecture. His argument was reprinted in various newspaper articles between 1969 and 1971. This suggestion has also been mentioned by Joseph Holloway, who argued in the 1993 book The African Heritage of American English (co-written with
19630-456: The word is also found in other languages. Many explanations for the origin of the expression have been suggested, but few have been discussed seriously by linguists . The following proposals have found mainstream recognition. The etymology that most reference works provide today is based on a survey of the word's early history in print: a series of six articles by Allen Walker Read in the journal American Speech in 1963 and 1964. He tracked
19781-442: The word was expected to be well known to readers and possibly in common colloquial use at the time. Various claims of earlier usage have been made. For example, it was claimed that the phrase appeared in a 1790 court record from Sumner County, Tennessee , discovered in 1859 by a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam , in which Andrew Jackson apparently said "proved a bill of sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for
19932-442: The word was expected to be well known to readers and possibly in common colloquial use at the time. Various claims of earlier usage have been made. For example, it was claimed that the phrase appeared in a 1790 court record from Sumner County, Tennessee , discovered in 1859 by a Tennessee historian named Albigence Waldo Putnam , in which Andrew Jackson apparently said "proved a bill of sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for
20083-589: Was a concert violinist and later a teacher at the Juilliard School . In 1912, his father, Charles Seeger, was hired to establish the music department at the University of California, Berkeley, but was forced to resign in 1918 because of his outspoken pacifism during World War I . Charles and Constance moved back east, making Charles's parents' estate in Patterson, New York , about 50 miles north of New York City, their base of operations. When baby Pete
20234-659: Was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, and had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers , notably their recording of Lead Belly 's " Goodnight, Irene ," which topped the charts for 14 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era . In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament , civil rights , counterculture , workers' rights , and environmental causes . A prolific songwriter, his best-known songs include " Where Have All
20385-429: Was abruptly derailed in 1953, at the peak of their popularity, when blacklisting prompted radio stations to refuse to play their records and all their bookings were canceled. They briefly returned to the stage, however, at a sold-out reunion at Carnegie Hall in 1955 and in a subsequent reunion tour , which produced a hit version of Merle Travis 's " Sixteen Tons ", as well as LPs of their concert performances. " Kumbaya ",
20536-421: Was because Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, derived from his hometown of Kinderhook, NY, had the initials O.K. Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures, some offensive, others devotional. OK is used to label buttons in modal dialog boxes such as error messages or print dialogs, indicating that the user can press the button to accept the contents of the dialog box and continue. When
20687-418: Was because Van Buren's nickname, Old Kinderhook, derived from his hometown of Kinderhook, NY, had the initials O.K. Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures, some offensive, others devotional. OK is used to label buttons in modal dialog boxes such as error messages or print dialogs, indicating that the user can press the button to accept the contents of the dialog box and continue. When
20838-751: Was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to American parents. Charles established the first musicology curriculum in the United States at the University of California, Berkeley , in 1913; helped found the American Musicological Society ; and was a key founder of the academic discipline of ethnomusicology . Pete's mother, Constance de Clyver Seeger (née Edson), raised in Tunisia and trained at the Paris Conservatory of Music ,
20989-575: Was broadcast when Seeger appeared again on the Smothers' Brothers show on February 25, 1968. At the November 15, 1969, Vietnam Moratorium March on Washington, DC, Seeger led 500,000 protesters in singing John Lennon 's song " Give Peace a Chance " as they rallied across from the White House. Seeger's voice carried over the crowd, interspersing phrases like "Are you listening, Nixon ?" between
21140-592: Was censored by CBS. In November 1976, Seeger wrote and recorded the anti-death penalty song "Delbert Tibbs", about the death-row inmate Delbert Tibbs , who was later exonerated . Seeger wrote the music and selected the words from poems written by Tibbs. Seeger also supported the Jewish Camping Movement. He came to Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Spring, New York , over the summer many times. He sang and inspired countless campers. Pete Seeger
21291-744: Was closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement and in 1963 helped organize a landmark Carnegie Hall concert, featuring the youthful Freedom Singers , as a benefit for the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. This event, and Martin Luther King Jr. 's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August of that same year, brought the civil rights anthem " We Shall Overcome " to wide audiences. He sang it on
21442-552: Was eighteen months old, they set out with him and his two older brothers in a homemade trailer to bring musical uplift to the working people in the American South. Upon their return, Constance taught violin and Charles taught composition at the New York Institute of Musical Art (later Juilliard ), whose president, family friend Frank Damrosch , was Constance's adoptive "uncle". Charles also taught part-time at
21593-443: Was head (1938–1953). Lomax also encouraged Seeger's folk-singing vocation, and Seeger was soon appearing as a regular performer on Alan Lomax and Nicholas Ray 's weekly Columbia Broadcasting show Back Where I Come From (1940–41) alongside Josh White , Burl Ives , Lead Belly , and Woody Guthrie (whom he had first met at Will Geer 's Grapes of Wrath benefit concert for migrant workers on March 3, 1940). Back Where I Come From
21744-431: Was later varied with spellings such as "Oll Korrect" or even "Ole Kurreck". The term appears to have achieved national prominence in 1840, when supporters of the Democratic political party claimed during the 1840 United States presidential election that it stood for "Old Kinderhook", a nickname for the Democratic president and candidate for reelection, Martin Van Buren , a native of Kinderhook, New York . "Vote for OK"
21895-569: Was one of the earliest backers of Bob Dylan ; he was responsible for urging A&R man John Hammond to produce Dylan's first LP on Columbia , and for inviting him to perform at the Newport Folk Festival , of which Seeger was a board member. There was a widely repeated story that Seeger was so upset over the extremely loud amplified sound that Dylan, backed by members of the Butterfield Blues Band , brought into
22046-424: Was one of the languages spoken at this time in the Southeastern United States by a tribe with significant contact with African slaves. The major language of trade in this area, Mobilian Jargon , was based on Choctaw-Chickasaw, two Muskogean -family languages. This language was used, in particular, for communication with the slave-owning Cherokee (an Iroquoian -family language). For the three decades prior to
22197-480: Was released in January of that year and became the first album in history wholly dedicated to songs about environmental issues. Their politics were informed by the same ideologies of nationalism, populism, and criticism of big business. Seeger attracted wider attention starting in 1967 with his song " Waist Deep in the Big Muddy ", about a captain —referred to in the lyrics as "the big fool"—who drowned while leading
22348-465: Was snappier than using his Dutch name. In response, Whig opponents attributed OK , in the sense of "Oll Korrect", to the bad spelling of Andrew Jackson , Van Buren's predecessor. The country-wide publicity surrounding the election appears to have been a critical event in OK ' s history, widely and suddenly popularizing it across the United States. Read proposed an etymology of OK in "Old Kinderhook" in 1941. The evidence presented in that article
22499-436: Was somewhat sparse, and the connection to "Oll Korrect" not fully elucidated. Various challenges to the etymology were presented; e.g., Heflin's 1962 article. However, Read's landmark 1963–1964 papers silenced most of the skepticism. Read's etymology gained immediate acceptance, and is now offered without reservation in most dictionaries. Read himself was nevertheless open to evaluating alternative explanations: Some believe that
22650-712: Was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Alone among the many witnesses after the 1950 conviction and imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress, Seeger refused to plead the Fifth Amendment (which would have asserted that his testimony might be self-incriminating) and instead, as the Hollywood Ten had done, refused to name personal and political associations on
22801-457: Was unique in having a racially integrated cast. The show was a success, but was not picked up by commercial sponsors for nationwide broadcasting because of its integrated cast. During the war , Seeger also performed on nationwide radio broadcasts by Norman Corwin . From 1942 to 1945, Seeger served in the Army , as an Entertainment Specialist. In 1949, Seeger worked as the vocal instructor for
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