Okay, Houston…We Have a Problem

I have no illusions about the range of my working vocabulary. It’s limited. Not unlike my grammar and punctuation skills. I’m working on both by reading a lot more. Since my time is limited, I try to stick with books that provide inspiration and good examples. It’s proven helpful many times over.

So, I thought I was making progress.

You can’t imagine my shock when I did a general search through my manuscript for “okay.”

I started the search because the editor, Jane VanVooren Rodgers, I hired for the first 40 pages suggested I use OK instead of okay. It saves space, so it’s logical. But, I thought, it might prove confusing at some point because Olof Krans signed his paintings with a stylized “OK.”

I began the search thinking there would be just a few instances which would require my attention. Was I ever wrong.

Okay is a colloquial term I use in dialog. And apparently I use it a lot.

I was writing down page numbers as I did my search and grew a little alarmed after filling up a couple lines on my notepad.

After filling in a few more lines, I started to laugh.

After several more lines were filled with page numbers, I was resigned to the onerous task of exorcising this blight of “okays.” It seems I’ve let them become invisible and therefore prolific. Forty-nine in all. Way too much.

The OED has a little section on the history of OK that goes something like this:

OK first recorded in the mid 19^th century as an exclamation. It became widely used during the presidential re-election campaign of Martin Van Buren in 1840. Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, NY and had the nickname “Old Kinderhook” thus OK.

I guess you’d have to have been there.

How to deal with problem words:

·        Substitute? Yes. Time to open up the thesaurus.

·        Eliminate through thoughtful pruning? Also yes.

Okay, now I’m going to get busy with paring down my dependence on this little expression. Okay?