WASHINGTON, March 20, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
COINING A PHRASE
Profile America — Sunday, March 20th. One of the most distinctive and near universal American colloquialisms — the affirmation "OK" — appeared in public for the first time this month in 1839. There have been claims that "OK" derives from languages as diverse as Greek and Choctaw, and that it appeared in earlier American documents. But it was first published in a Boston Morning Post story with a brief definition. While "OK" took off around the country, and eventually the world with variants in some two dozen languages, time KO'd the Boston Post. That paper folded in 1956 after 125 years of publication. Today in the U.S., there are nearly 7,500 daily, weekly or other newspaper publishers still doing OK in this digital age. You can find more facts about America's people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at www.census.gov.
Sources:
First OK/accessed 12/24/2015: http://famousdaily.com/history/first-published-use-of-term-ok.html
Etymology: http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-ok
Global spread/accessed 12/24/2015: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-12503686
Other languages/accessed 12/24/2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK#International_usage
Newspaper publishing/ NAICS 511110: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
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