That's a weird word.

這是一個奇怪的詞。

By which I mean, "OK."

我是指 ，"OK"。

"OK" means like fine, good, satisfactory, approved.

"OK" 意味著美好的，愉快的，令人滿意的，被認可的。

None of those words even have K's in them!

這些單詞中甚至沒有一個含有 K 這個字母！

There aren't any words that are just capital letters.

沒有任何單詞是只用大寫字母的。

This isn't normal!

這不太正常！

And yet, "OK" is possibly the most spoken word on the planet.

不只如此，“OK”可能是這個星球上口語中最常用的單詞。

Not because we say it a lot in the US, which we do,

不僅僅是因為我們在美國常用

but also because we say it a lot everywhere.

也是因為我們到任何地方都常用。

So many other languages have been like,

所以許多其他的語言會用像是

"Yeah, actually, that one's good. We'll take that."

"Yeah, actually, that one's good. We'll take that." 這些語詞來表達

So from Mandarin to Hebrew to Flemish to Russian to Indian to Portuguese,

而從華語到希伯來語，到法蘭德斯語，到俄語，到印度語，到葡萄牙語

"OK" is "OK"!

"OK" 就是 "OK"!

It's a common, affirmative word.

這是一個普遍的，表示肯定的單詞。

What does "OK" even mean?

“OK”還意味著什麼？

It's like you want to approve of something, but not a lot.

它就像是你同意某件事，但又不是完全同意。

The way we have a word for "good" without all the GOOD tied up in it.

我們用一個詞來形容「好」，但是並不是把所有的好都包含在裡面。

Like if I fall down, you say, "Are you OK?"

譬如我跌倒了，你說，「你還好嗎？」

All you're really asking is, "Is there something wrong?"

其實你真正要問的是，「有沒有受傷？」

It's like an acceptance without any values or perspective or opinions laid on top of it.

OK 就像是一種，不包含任何價值觀，或觀點或意見的同意。

And I want that! I can just be OK, and that's OK!

我想要那樣！我可以簡單的用 OK 表示，這樣也很好！

But where did it actually come from, though?

然而，OK 實際上是源自於何處呢？

Allow me to introduce you to the only Wikipedia page that is a list of potential etymologies for a word.

讓我向您介紹唯一的一個維基百科頁面，它是一個單詞的潛在詞源列表

And it's very long!

這個頁面很長！

Maybe it comes from "och aye". Like, Scottish. Oh yes.

也許它源自於 "och aye" 。就像，蘇格蘭語。 哦，是的。

Or from the Greek phrase, "ola kala," meaning "all good." Maybe!

或源自於希臘語“ola kala”，意思是「一切都好」。 也許吧！

But etymologists and historians have settled on three prime theories.

但是語源學家和歷史學家已經確定了三個基本理論。

We'll get to the most settled-upon one last, but let's start with a West African origin.

我們把大多數人認同的起源，留到最後再說，現在讓我們先從源自於西非開始講起

Thus brought to the US by slaves.

從那裏，把奴隸帶進了美國。

A 1784 verified use of the word "K," rather than "OK,"

1784 年，在北卡羅萊納州，一個奴隸說過的話的抄本

is a transcription of something a slave said in North Carolina.

被證實是 "K," 而不是 "OK,"。

And this may come from a common West African phrase "o ke," or "waw-kay," depending on the language,

這可能來自一個常見的西非短語“o ke”或“waw-kay”

that's basically an affirmative or a backchannel.

基本上是一種表達肯定，或是應答發話者的用語。

A backchannel is what linguists call that thing that you do where you make a noise or you say a phrase or a word

語言學家對 "backchannel" 的解釋是，你用一種聲音，或說一個單詞字或短語

just to let somebody know that you understood what they said.

讓發話者知道，你明白他們所說的話。

And among the many uses for the word "OK" remains backchanneling.

"OK" 有許多用法，但最主要還是拿來當做對發話者的應答語。

Like you're on the phone and you're like, "OK, uh-huh, yup, mhm, OK," - Like that!

就像你在打電話說，「好吧，嗯，嗯，嗯，好吧，」 - 就像那樣！

Second, the Choctaw word "okeh", which maybe was also somewhat similar and other Native American languages,

第二，源自於喬克托 (美洲原住民) 語“okeh”，也許與其他美洲原住民語言有些相似

and from what I can tell this is not particularly easy to translate,

而且據我的理解，這個單詞並不容易翻譯

but probably it means something to the effect of "it is so,"

但可能它意味著「就是這樣」的意思

and is also apparently sometimes used as a backchannel, weirdly enough.

並且很顯然地，有時也被用作應答語，滿奇怪的。

The definite thing that we do know is when it entered into the popular lexicon of average Americans as the letter O and the letter K:

我們可以確定的是，當它以字母 O 和 K 的形式，成為一般美國人的流行詞彙時：

In the late 1830s, there was this weird fad for comically misspelling things in newspapers --

在19世紀30年代後期，當時有一種奇怪的時尚，就是報紙詼諧地將一些字故意拼錯 --

I don't know...

我不知道 ...

-- and then you would take those common misspellings and create acronyms from them.

-- 然後你會把這些常見的錯誤拼寫記下來，並從中創造出字首縮略詞。

Like another example of a similar word was "OW", which was for "oll wright".

另一個類似的例子是，將“oll-wright”縮寫成“OW”。

Later, they had "oll korrect" - "OK."

後來，他們就有了 "oll korrect" - 寫成 "OK."

Ugh!

呃！

Now this, like all of the other weird comical misspelling acronyms, would have been completely forgotten

如果不是馬丁．范布倫，就會像所有其他奇怪滑稽的拼寫錯誤的字首縮略詞一樣

if not for Martin Van Buren.

完全被遺忘。

The democratic party decided to take this weird "OK" meme and apply it to Martin Van Buren,

民主黨决定把這個奇怪又流行的 "OK" 應用到馬丁．范布倫身上

whose name sounded too Dutch, I guess?

我猜他的名字聽起來太荷蘭味了吧？

But he was from Kinderhook, New York and they called him "Ole Kinderhook",

但他來自纽约的金德霍克，他們稱他為「老金德霍克」

but that probably also wouldn't have stuck around if people hadn't been looking for ways to save characters on telegrams because you payed by the letter.

但是如果當時的人沒有設法找到方法來保存電報上的字元，那可能也不會保留到現在，因為電報是以字數來收費的。

And then "OK" continued to trundle down the decades until we got to where we are now.

然後 "OK" 繼續苟延殘喘了幾十年，ㄧ直到發展成今天的樣貌。

For me, the amazing thing about this word is how normal and everyday it is,

對我來說，關於這個詞的神奇之處，在於它是那麼通俗又普及

despite the fact that it is very weird and unusual and we never noticed that.

儘管它很奇怪又不像個正常的詞，但我們從未注意到這一點。

And it sort of exists in the background as part of the fabric of culture,

它好像已經融入我們的生活中成為文化結構的一部分

not as something that we immediately identify as something that we're confused and amazed by.

而不是我們一個，我們一看到就會覺得特別的東西。

But it is confusing and amazing,

雖然它是那麼令人困惑和感到驚奇

and I guess that's OK.

但我想這是 OK 的。

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.

約翰，我們星期二見。