This week’s special Lingwizardry is brought to you by our resident historian, Kevin Hillman.
Every year, Merriam-Webster adds new words to the dictionary. And every year, we bemoan the addition of lingo like “LOL” and “sext” to our official lexicon, as though it is indicative of the downfall of society. But these words, primarily created in the Internet age, are part of a long American tradition.
See, unlike the French, who have an Académie that regulates their language, English, particularly American English, has a long tradition of democratization. So while it is easy to whine about kids and their PDAs and typewriters ruining good ol’ American words, remember that it is nothing new, and an evolving language is really OK.
Actually, “OK” is the perfect example of how Americans have democratized the English language in the past 200 years. “OK” sounds like a word that would have been invented in the Internet age alongside LOL and WTF. The word, in all its simplicity, actually predates Internet lingo by about 155 years. It sounds like an acronym and looks like one, too, but ask people what “OK” stands for and very few could give you the answer. Most signs point to “OK” meaning “orl korrekt,” which you might recognize as making no damn sense whatsoever.
It turns out that American men and women of the 1830s actually had a sense of humor, and even though they were among the few people in the world who were actually literate, they liked to misspell words and make weird acronyms. You might recognize this as common practice for anyone who’s ever sent a text message. “Orl korrekt” was a purposely corrupted spelling of “all correct” and took on its meaning, and, as was hip at the time, was then shortened to simply “OK”.
This democratization of language was a direct result of the Declaration of Independence. Following the American Revolution, common folk began to see themselves as human beings on an equal footing with their supposed social betters. The American aristocracy (Greek aristokratía, from aristos, “excellent,” and kratos, “power”) certainly didn’t love the idea, but it came with the territory after claiming that “all men were created equal.”
The first and second generations born after the American Revolution had taken its purported goals to heart and began democratizing institutions everywhere. This democratization led to the drastic divisions in the Protestant Church, which created several new sects due to popular differences in interpretation. Politics became less about deferring to the greater sort and more about selecting the guy who agreed with your views — or bought you beer.
It also affected much of our language, with Mister, Madame, and other honorifics coming into common use for common folks, as opposed to being reserved for the upper class. Democratization of the English language meant the spelling of some words was changed to align with more common usage, a practice that exists to this day and can cause a lot of confusion.
Even the word “democracy” itself took on new meaning — or, at least, new connotations. To the Founding Generation, “democracy” (Greek dēmokratía, from dēmos, “people,” and kratos, “power”) was a dirty word, used in disgust and largely viewed as describing “mob rule.” Many of the founders of the American Republic thought the common people just weren’t capable of ruling themselves, which is the reason we have a Senate and an Electoral College and don’t pass laws based on referendum the way the Athenians did things.
The change in tone for “democracy” came at about the same time as the rise of “OK” — and largely thanks to the same man. “OK” was perhaps the biggest product of American linguistic democracy. An abbreviation and misspelling fad in 19th-century Boston created the most commonly understood word in the 21st-century world. Its simplicity and catchiness gave it tremendous spreading power. But “OK” never would have spread far outside of the working classes of Boston if not for the most important president in the history of the United States.
Of course, I’m speaking of Martin Van Buren. The eighth president of the United States and key founder of the Democratic Party began his life in Kinderhook (Dutch for “children’s corner”), New York, and was of Dutch ancestry. The first “ethnic” President, Van Buren actually spoke Dutch as his primary language. Van Buren was also the first president born after the American Revolution, making him the first president born a U.S. citizen — and making the “This is America, so speak English,” argument look a bit absurd. Van Buren, the son of a tavern keeper, had no love for the aristocratic ways of Old America and was a strong advocate for giving a voice to the common man.
In the early 1820s, Americans believed party politics was dead. The Democratic-Republicans of Thomas Jefferson were the only viable political party left, having defeated the Federalists soundly and frequently. With the election of 1824, however, that all changed. With four different candidates on the presidential ballot, no man was able to secure a victory, and the race was thrown into the House of Representatives, which awarded the election to John Quincy Adams. Popular favorite Andrew Jackson was furious, and Van Buren, with his brilliant political mind, saw an opportunity.
The country was shifting from the days of the Revolution, which romanticized the ancient Roman Republic and the ideals of disinterested leadership, to the second generation of American political leaders and an affinity for all things Ancient Greece. Hence the shift in popularity of the word “democracy” as well as its philosophy, which was associated with Ancient Greek government.
Van Buren understood the shift better than anyone. After the election of 1824, Van Buren began assembling an opposition party against Adams by using the prestige and stature of Old Hickory. Jackson, viewed as a hero of the people, was able to garner support from all around the country, as common men viewed his rough nature and gruff attitude as proof that he was just like them. His immense popularity led to Adams leaving after only one term in office, as Jackson, the people’s chosen representative, was elected in 1828, establishing the Democratic Party as a force to be reckoned with.
Van Buren had built a party from the ground up and changed the way we look at politics — and our own language. Van Buren, in the tradition of Jefferson, changed the connotation of “democracy” into a positive one. The first generation born under the Declaration of Independence was seeing to its promise of equality for all — err, all white men anyway.
1836 was Van Buren’s year to take up his party’s mantle. He took on the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, and was victorious in a landslide, largely thanks to the popularity of the incumbent. In 1840, however, Van Buren was not so lucky.
Van Buren’s Democratic Party and the Whigs who opposed it established what we would consider the modern political system. The elections were no longer about issues but more about appealing to the masses with slogans and sound bites. Harrison’s Whig Party ran with “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” in reference to Harrison’s military victory in the Battle of Tippecanoe and his running mate, John Tyler. They also perpetuated the myth that Harrison, like Van Buren and Jackson, was a common man’s hero, born in a log cabin on the frontier — which he certainly was not. Harrison was Virginia aristocracy, born in a comfortable mansion, with a father who signed the Declaration of Independence. The log cabin image, however, caught on.
Van Buren, despite being the son of a tavern keeper, was portrayed as a wealthy, aristocratic snob. You may recognize these tactics, as they still exist to this day, with the best example being George W. Bush, a Yale legacy and son of a president convincing the country that he was a Washington outsider and a cowboy.
To combat the Whigs, the Democrats began calling Van Buren “Old Kinderhook,” or “OK” for short, in reference to his hometown. “Old Kinderhook” used the nickname to gather grassroots support, but was ultimately defeated by Tippecanoe and his Log Cabin campaign, proving that perception is everything when it comes to politics.
On the bright side, the race greatly popularized the use of the word “OK”, with it reaching all corners of a country which had only a president and a common language uniting it. The introduction of the telegraph and the railroad, which signaled the birth of mass communication, meant that “OK” would spread across the nation, just like the Internet did for “LOL” and “sext”.
In time, our language further evolved, with “OK” now being written as “okay” in most of our conversations.
Today, we honor Old Kinderhook’s memory by invoking his nickname in every single conversation we have. So remember, Old Kinderhook may not make your list of top ten U.S. presidents — unless you rank them in chronological order — but Martin Van Buren did popularize the most American of words, and that is pretty OK.