I don’t often use social media abbreviations—BTW, ICYMI, IIRC, TTYL, LOL. They just aren’t me. Call me old school, but other than the occasional FYI, my most commonly used abbreviation is OK. What editor can deny the trenchancy of good old OK?
In fact, I recently learned that editors are credited with creating the abbreviation.
According to the current issue (October 2014) of National Geographic, OK is short for “oll korrect,” a phrase deliberately misspelled and used by editors back in the early 1800s to indicate that copy was “all correct.” No doubt the editors were lamenting that the English language—and the very intelligence of English-speaking people—was going to hell in a handbasket, ha, ha. (That’s LOL for you young’uns.)
OK first appeared in print 175 years ago in a Boston newspaper. With that kind of history and with its editorial parentage, no wonder OK is a favourite of mine.