The Origin of OK as a positive response has many versions.
During the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 General Andrew Jackson asked Pushmantaha, leader of some 500 Choctaws, "How are our warriors doing against the British?"
Panel 2: Jackson started using the term. He became our seventh president, serving from 1829 to 1837. Jackson: "My Vice-President John C. Calhoun resigned. That's OK with me."

"Okeh." Meaning "It is so"

Panel 3: "OK" first appeared in print in the Boston Morning Post of March 23, 1893. Its editor Charles Gordon Greene explained, "It's a variation on an incorrectly spelled slang term Oll Korrect.

Panel 4: Our eighth president Martin Van Buren ran for reelection in 1840 against....

 Panel 5: General William Henry Harrison who sported the nickname Tippicanoe, after his famous victory in the War of 1812.

Panel 6: Van Buren's campaign managers: "He needs a catchy nickname.
"A lot of ads use Old suchas Old Glory."
"
President Van Buren hails from Kinderhook, New York."
"That's it. How 'bout Old Kinderhook.."

 Panel 7: Overnight, Democratic OK (Old Kinderhook) Clubs sprang up across the country. Van Buren's supporters work "OK" badges.

Panel 8: Unfortunately for Van Buren the voters OK'd Harrison for Prez.

 Panel 8 footnote: OK Lives on as a slang expression for something good in many languages.



 

 Why You Say It by Webb Garrison
Great Scott! This does not beat around the bush. It spills the beans with the scuttlebutt on the screwball origins of over 600 terms in our lingo. Most blurbs will tickle your funny bone. The upshot of it all is that we cannot hype this book enough.
5¼ x 8½” 356 pages, paperbound ISBN 1-55853-128-0
#185 Why You Say It $14.95

Here are more books on the origin of words and phrases:

 
 Who Put the Butter in Bufferfly?...and other fearless investigations into our illogical language
by David Feldman
The English lingo has words that are downright peculiar: cooties, doozies, and heebie-jeebies; finks and funks; mugwumps and nuumuus; deepsix and could nine; Don’t beat around the bush, or wait until the eleventh hour, or until the jig is up before you order this terrific reference book.
5¼" x 8" 209 pages, index, drawings, paperbound
ISBN 0-06-091661-3
#438 Butter in Butterfly $12.95

 
 Horsefeathers & Other Curious Words
by Charles Earle Funk
Know why the candy is called butterscotch; why a certain southern food is called hush puppy; why log supports in a fireplace are known as andirons or sometimes firedogs? The editor-in-chief of the Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary tells about the origins of over 600 words such as cubbyhole, stevedore, hornswoggle, crowbar, juke box, tantamount, handkerchief, and more.
5¼" x 8" 240 pages, index, drawings, paperbound
ISBN 0-06-051337-3

#437 Horsefeathers $12.95

 
 If you ever wondered why when you're in a hurry, you were told to hold your horses, wonder no more!
Heavens to Betsy & Other Curious Sayings
by Charles Earle Funk
Whether it's like a bump on a log or a bat out of hell, these expressions have been around forever, but we've never really known why...until now. Finally Dr. Funk explains more than 400 droll, colorful, and sometimes pungent expressions of everyday speech. Derived from classical sources, famous literature, frontier humor, and the frailties of humankind, each of these sayings has an interesting story behind its origin.
5¼" x 8" 224 pages, index, drawings, paperbound
ISBN 0-06-051331-4
#407 Heavens to Betsy $12.95