The word is “OK,” the most frequently spoken all-purpose expression on the planet — and it’s turning 175 years old on March 23.
“OK”是全球使用頻率最高的、最通用的詞語，今年3月23日，它就要175歲了。
The term was born during a 19th-century abbreviation craze and went on to international renown, with its own hand gesture, even.
“OK”誕生于19世紀(jì)的縮寫潮中，后來跟它的手勢一起紅遍了全球。
And one New Yorker is carrying the linguistic torch. Henry Nass, a 64-year-old retired English tutor from the Upper West Side, has spent the last few weeks handing out cards championing “Global OK Day” in advance of the coming anniversary.
一個紐約人正在舉著這個語言學(xué)上的耀眼火炬奔走宣傳。在175周年紀(jì)念日來臨之前，美國紐約市上西區(qū)64歲的退休英語教師亨利·納斯已經(jīng)連續(xù)幾周在街頭派發(fā)倡導(dǎo) “國際OK日”的卡片。
“No matter where people are from they use the word ‘OK,’ but they don’t know where it comes from,” says Nass. “The problem is because it’s just, you know, OK.”
納斯說：“世界各地的人都會說OK，但他們并不知道這個詞語的來源，原因可能是這個詞真的太普及了。”
The word is OK, perhaps, but its history is definitely better than average.
“OK”這個詞可能很普及，但是它的歷史絕對不夠普及。已故詞源學(xué)家艾倫·沃克·里德曾認(rèn)為OK的歷史始于1839年。當(dāng)時，《波士頓早報(bào)》的編輯們在簽署文章時用簡明的“OK”或“oll korrect”來表示“完全正確”(all correct)。
The word made it into print on March 23 of that year, during a weird inside-baseball tirade against a rival editor in Providence who had alleged, wrongly, that a band of Bostonians headed to New York would pass through the Rhode Island capital.
同一年的3月23日，OK第一次登上報(bào)紙，《波士頓早報(bào)》在一篇攻擊普羅維頓斯的一個編輯對手的文章里使用了這個詞語。這個編輯錯誤地?cái)嘌砸蝗呵巴~約的波士頓人將會途經(jīng)美國羅得島州的首府（即普羅維頓斯）。
“We said not a word about our deputation passing ‘through the city’ of Providence,” the Morning Post reported. “O.K. — all correct.”
《波士頓早報(bào)》報(bào)道：“我們從來沒說過我們代表團(tuán)將會‘途經(jīng)普羅維頓斯’O.K. ——完全正確。”
The humor of the Providence-Boston joke has been lost to history — but the word OK took off from there, soon connoting agreement, acceptance, mediocrity, endorsement, quality or likability.
這個關(guān)于普羅維登斯和波士頓的笑話已經(jīng)是過去的歷史了，但是OK這個詞從此風(fēng)靡，很快就包含了同意、接受、普通、支持、棒極了和可愛的意思。
By 1840, it served as a slogan for President Martin Van Buren’s unsuccessful reelection campaign. “Old Kinderhook is OK,” posters proclaimed, a reference to the eighth president’s birthplace and his partisans’ belief in his generally satisfactory performance.
在1840年，OK成為美國總統(tǒng)馬丁·范布倫競選連任的宣傳標(biāo)語，雖然范布倫最后失敗了。海報(bào)上寫著“金德胡克很OK”，金德胡克指的是這位第八任美國總統(tǒng)的出生地。這句口號顯示了跟隨馬丁·范布倫的黨派對他的政治表現(xiàn)總體上還是比較滿意的。
OK was picked up by telegraph operators as an easy abbreviation to say they received transmission, and in 1969, Buzz Aldrin’s first words spoken on the moon were “OK. Engine stop,” says Allan Metcalf, author of “OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word.”
OK早先被電報(bào)員們廣泛使用，是表達(dá)他們接收成功的簡易縮寫?！?/span>OK：美國最偉大詞語不可思議的故事》一書作者艾倫·梅特卡夫說：“在1969年，宇航員巴茲·奧爾德林在月球上說的第一句話就是 ‘OK，發(fā)動機(jī)停止’。”
After all, to activate Google Glass, you don’t say, “OMG, Glass,” you say, “OK, Glass.”
而且，谷歌眼鏡的語音啟動是“OK, Glass”而不是“OMG, Glass”。
“We happen to know the exact date and place of the very first ‘OK’ and that’s not very usual for many words so why not celebrate that day?” says Metcalf, whose book built on Read’s earlier research.
梅特卡夫說：“我們知道了OK誕生的時間和地點(diǎn)，這對于許多詞語來說并不常見，所以我們?yōu)槭裁床粦c祝這一天呢？”他的書《OK：美國最偉大詞語不可思議的故事》是在那位已故詞源學(xué)家里德早期的研究基礎(chǔ)上編撰的。
In a sense, the United Nations — where six languages are instantaneously converted by experts — celebrates the word every day. In fact, translators don’t even bother to render “OK” in each diplomat’s chosen tongue because everyone on the planet understands it already.
從某種意義上來說，有專業(yè)譯者同時翻譯6種語言的聯(lián)合國每天都在贊美OK這個詞。事實(shí)上，翻譯員們不用將OK翻譯成外交官的母語，因?yàn)槊總€人都懂得它的意思。
“It’s a word that tends not to be translated, but transported,” says Peter Connor, the director of the Center for Translation studies at Barnard College.
巴納德學(xué)院翻譯研究中心主任皮特·康納表示：“這是個不用翻譯，僅需傳遞的詞。”
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