<story><title>The history of &apos;OK&apos; (2023)</title><url>https://people.howstuffworks.com/history-ok.htm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jonplackett</author><text>Is it me or does the final paragraph totally contradict itself?&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not that it was needed to &amp;#x27;fill a gap&amp;#x27; in any language. Before 1839, English speakers had &amp;#x27;yes,&amp;#x27; &amp;#x27;good,&amp;#x27; &amp;#x27;fine,&amp;#x27; &amp;#x27;excellent,&amp;#x27; &amp;#x27;satisfactory&amp;#x27; and &amp;#x27;all right.&amp;#x27; What OK provided that the others did not was neutrality, a way to affirm or to express agreement without having to offer an opinion.&lt;p&gt;That, as is then explained - response without judgement, is a really big and useful gap to fill.</text></comment>
<story><title>The history of &apos;OK&apos; (2023)</title><url>https://people.howstuffworks.com/history-ok.htm</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hahahacorn</author><text>A deep knowledge of etymology, if nothing else, is useful for answering a 5 year old&amp;#x27;s infamous chain of &amp;quot;why?&amp;quot;s&lt;p&gt;Disregarding potential inaccuracies, I love stories like these. Not particularly sure why, but I&amp;#x27;m sure someone has a post somewhere about why we&amp;#x27;re so obsessed with the history of _our_ mundane.</text></comment>