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"OK" began as a newspaper joke in 1839 Boston. Educated y... | funfact.wiki | funfact.wiki
"OK" began as a newspaper joke in 1839 Boston. Educated young people then had a fad of deliberately misspelling abbreviations, so "all correct" became "oll korrect," shortened to "o.k." It spread nationwide the next year as short for "Old Kinderhook," the nickname of candidate Martin Van Buren.
  • OK
  • Etymology
  • English language
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'Goodbye' originated in the mid-16th century as a contraction of "God be with ye." It was gradually shortened to forms like 'Godbwye,' and under the influence of greetings like 'Good morning,' 'God' shifted to 'Good,' giving us today's word.
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  • English
  • Language
  • Etymology
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The distress signal "Mayday" comes from the French "M'aidez" (help me). In 1921, radio officer Frederick Mockford at London's Croydon Airport proposed it for aviation communication with Paris, as both English and French speakers could understand it.
  • Distress signal
  • French
  • Aviation
  • Etymology
  • Mondegreen
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The English word "bear" was originally a euphemism meaning "the brown one." Ancient people feared or revered the bear so much that they avoided its true name, and the substitute became permanent. The Russian медведь similarly derives from a euphemism meaning "honey eater."
  • Bear
  • Honey
  • Language
  • Etymology
  • Name taboo
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AM stands for Ante Meridiem ("before noon" in Latin) and PM for Post Meridiem ("after noon"). Since 12:00 noon is noon itself—neither before nor after—the expressions "12 AM" and "12 PM" are inherently contradictory.
  • Time
  • Etymology
  • Latin language
  • Language
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Many European surnames originated from 'son of [father's name].' English -son (Johnson, Jackson), Celtic Mc/Mac (McDonald, MacArthur) and O' (O'Brien), Spanish -ez (Rodríguez, González), and Slavic -vić (Ibrahimović, Đoković) all trace back to a father's name that became hereditary.
  • Europe
  • English language
  • Spanish language
  • Language
  • Culture
  • Surname
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