OK, Okay, and o.k.

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and earlier this week I told you about a book called “You’re ok, your dog’s ok.” There were a number of grammar errors in this title, and the last one we’ll cover this week was the spelling of “ok.” The title had this as letter o, letter k, all lowercase. This is the wrong way. If you’re going to use only the two-letter spelling, you must capitalize both because this word is typically thought to be an abbreviation. (What exactly it’s abbreviating is a matter of debate and has probably been lost to history.) You can also write the word out phonetically as o-k-a-y. In this case, you don’t need to capitalize any of the letters. Either OK all-caps or okay spelled out is correct. I personally prefer the spelled-out version because I think the capitals draw unnecessary attention. However you write it, don’t write o-k in lowercase. That guarantees you’ll be wrong. That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.