an aside! ok?

An aside! OK? | Pennie Hammond | February 15th, 2001

Does anyone know the rule for the use of OK.

All I can come up with to date is that one shouldn't use it with the verbs 'to have' and 'to be.' And that it generally means, 'I agree' when used as a response.

It is over-used by Korean students and I would like to provide some guidelines.

Pennie

Re: An aside! OK? | Danyal | February 16th, 2001

That was an interesting comment about "OK."

Taiwan is another place that is overly fond of OK and particularly the phrase 'so so'.   Coming from the UK. I don't ever remember encountering this expression. Here it's simply a literal translation from the Chinese, reflecting their cultural communication norms. While I generally dislike it's usage, since its a conversation killer, it's hard to see how as culturally sensitive teachers, we can proscribe it.

I guess there must be similar examples of common phrases reflecting the native culture that have no real equivalent usage or literal meaning in English speaking cultures.   This also enforces Braj Kachru's ideas of world Englishes as being independent entities adapted to serve the 'host' culture.

Danyal

OK | Suzanne | February 16th, 2001

I'm trying hard to remember at the moment where I read rules about OK not so long ago, but I'm afraid I can't. Vivian's answer is interesting in that although I also come from the UK, I am familiar with and use the expression 'so so' myself, perhaps just showing how different linguistic experience- even that of native speakers- is.  

Pennie- there are, of course, several meanings of this term and in the other meaning of 'alright', you can use it with 'to be' (I'm o.k.- it is also, I believe, a verb and an adjective in US English?   An o.k. Pinkie?   He okayed/ok'd etc. the agreement?  

I would guess that it has something to do with the way you structure a question:

Is your problem that they use it as an answer too much, or that they hang it onto the end of sentences too much?

Suzanne
Germany

OK for Yes | Pennie Hammond | February 20th, 2001

To clarify my question about OK:

Korean students often use 'OK' for 'yes.'  "Will you be here tomorrow?" Answer: "OK"  

I am trying to put together some guidelines. (I'm not concerned with OK as an adjective).

To date, I have realized that one cannot use OK for 'yes' with the verbs 'to have' or 'to be'. Do you have a book?   OK is not appropriate. Are you taller than your brother? OK is not appropriate.

However:

Do you want to come tomorrow? OK would be acceptable.

My question is, is there any rule concerning verbs? Why can we use OK with the verb 'to want'? I suspect that OK in this context means 'all right' and not 'yes'.

My British colleague says that it derives from the Scottish expression 'och aye' meaning 'oh, yes'. But that doesn't answer my question.

Pennie

Ok for YES | Thomas Bloor | March 4th, 2001

Pennie,

As no one has come up with a solution to your interesting problem, which I confess I have never before come across, here is my shot at it. Sorry for the delay.

I suspect that the constraints on 'OK' (or 'okay') that baffle your Korean students are pragmatic rather than narrowly lexico-grammatical. Your last email suggests that you are working towards this view yourself. Trying to identify lists of lexical verbs that can or can't trigger the response 'OK' is probably futile because the crucial issue is whether or not the utterance to which the speaker is responding is functioning as (or interpreted as) a request for information (e.g. Can you swim? etc.) or as a proposal (e.g. Shall we go swimming? How about a swim? Etc.) In the first instance 'OK' would typically be inappropriate, but in the second it would be acceptable.

Sometimes the same wording can be interpreted in either way because we often express proposals (requests, suggestions, etc) as interrogatives. (See 'illocutionary force' in the TDA module.) Hence 'Will you be here tomorrow?' (Pennie's example) or 'Can you swim?' (my example) might just conceivably receive 'OK' as an appropriate response if the question were construed as an indirect directive rather than a straightforward question. If you doubt this, try adding 'please'. It is even more likely that 'OK' would be appropriate in response to 'Could you be here tomorrow (please)?' or 'You will be here tomorrow, won't you?' Likewise, whilst 'Do you have a book?' (Pennie's example) would normally elicit the response 'Yes' and not 'OK', the question 'Will you have a biscuit?' might well receive 'OK', assuming that the interactants are on a fairly informal footing. As so often happens with questions about grammar and lexis, the context of situation is crucial. To put it another way, 'OK' does not mean 'Yes' in the sense 'Yes, the proposition you are querying is true', but rather something like 'Yes, I accede to your proposal about how to proceed' or 'Yes, I accept your offer'.

There is also the possibility of 'OK' meaning 'Yes, I take your point', which is a bit more difficult to explain. If I say, 'Do Koreans like pickled vegetables?' and you respond with 'Is the Pope a Catholic?' or 'Do bears defecate in the woods?', I might reply, 'OK', meaning 'I get your meaning'. Or even 'Yes, maybe it was a daft question'. Or something else, but not 'Yes, I assert that the Pope is a Catholic'. And sometimes, 'OK' is just a reassurance that you are still listening.

There is a lot more to be said on the issue but this is a start.

This is a good example of the kind of linguistic question that thinking teachers should ask. It is an issue that speech act theory or other areas of pragmatics can shed light on, which is why all English teachers should study discourse analysis (including pragmatics) and also functional grammar, of course.

By the way, the scholarly consensus seems to be that the etymology of 'OK' is unknown. Popular suggestions have been: an abbreviation for 'Orl korrekt', a Native American word 'Okeh' meaning 'It is agreed', and your colleague's 'Och aye'. None of these sounds very plausible, especially the last. I suspect that it originated in America. The Oxford Dictionary says it derives from the initials of Old Kinderhook, a town near Albany, USA, the birthplace of a Democratic candidate, Martin van Buren, and was used as first a slogan and later a term of approval suggesting 'oll korrect.' Maybe.

Best

Tom

 

 

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