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 19th 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?
It has been brought to my attention that the real and accurate quote from Apollo 13, commanded by James Lovell, was "Houston, we HAD a problem." It seems the verb was been changed by popular demand. That's what I remembered and I didn't look it up to verify the accuracy. The "okay" part of the title was a play on the word and used to reflect the object of my blog post. Sorry if I confused anyone. Mary
ReplyDeleteOkay...I've looked it up and it is "Houston, we've had a problem." There. I can't get it any better.
ReplyDelete