Amicable Divorce
Army Intelligence
Business Ethics
Business Trip
Civil Disobedience
Civil Servant
Committee Decision
Corporate Hospitality
Crash Landing
Deafening Silence
Dry Drunk
Educated Guess
Executive Decision
Floppy Disk
Free Trade
Friendly Fire
Guest Host
Irregular Pattern
Jumbo Shrimp
Little While
Living Dead
Martial Law
Mercy Killing
Metal Woods
Microsoft Works
Operator Service
Paid Volunteer
Same Difference
Student Teacher
Sweet Sorrow
Virtual Reality
Working Holiday
Working Lunch
WHERE’S IT FROM?
HAIR SHIRT
To wear a hair shirt means to punish yourself excessively for imagined faults. Thomas Becket, a twelfth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, wore a real shirt made of hair which he refused to take off. After he died — murdered on the wishes (if not the orders) of King Henry II — they found his hair shirt was crawling with lice.
OK
There are several different possibilities. In no particular order, they are:
1. Obediah Kelly — a US railroad freight agent who marked his initials on important papers to show that everything was in order.
2. Okeh — the Choctaw Indian word for ‘yes’.
3. ‘Orl Korect’ or ‘Oll Korrect’ — nineteenth-century US President Andrew Jackson’s folksy way of expressing himself (apparently using ‘comical’ initials was terribly popular in the 1830s) which led to him being known as OK Jackson.
4. Old Kinderhook — President Jackson’s successor, Martin Van Buren, joined in the ‘OK’ fun and used the initials to refer to his home town of Kinderhook.
5. Olla Kalla — the Greek expression for ‘all is good’.
6. O Ke — in Mandingo (a West African language) means ‘all right’.
7. Wav Kay — in Wolof (a language of Senegal and Gambia) means ‘yes indeed’.
8. Omnia Correctes — in Latin means ‘all is correct’.
9. Och Aye — in Scottish means ‘oh yes’.
10. Oc — is derived from the Latin affirmative hoc.
What is certain is that US President Van Buren popularized the expression so that by the 1840s it was in wide usage.