Which is more acceptable?

I can't say this is fact, just opinion - but I was always taught to write: Okay.

It looks better, because OK is Oklahoma, and ok is annoying.

But I can't back that up, so wait for more intelligent people to come along

Another vote for "okay" here. It just looks better to me than "ok."

Karen

I like both okay and O.K. (with the periods).

According to Wikipedia:

The historical record shows that "O.K." appeared as an abbreviation for oll korrect (a conscious misspelling of "all correct") in Boston newspapers in 1839, and was reinterpreted as "Old Kinderhook" in the 1840 United States presidential election...Since the 19th century, the word has spread around the world, the "okay" spelling of it first appearing in British writing in the 1860s.

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...so O.K. may be more 'correct' than the others, technically speaking, since it was the original (?).

all caps or spelled out - lower case ok is never okay

Bingo aghast. Newspaper style (what I usually work with) calls for OK. But I'm like you; I never liked it. In my other writing, I use "okay."

The AP style book (for newspapers) says "OK, OK'd OK'ing, OKs. Do not use okay." Wow OK'd and OK'ing look really ugly. In literature I would use okay.

I've read some piece of fiction written in the 1930s, in which it was rendered "okeh" all the way through. I gather there was a theory common then that it was related to a Choctaw word "okeh", so some people - including FDR - insisted on that as a "pure" spelling.

I'd concur with OK or okay. Not being from the states, I tend not to read "OK" as "Oklahoma", and indeed it hadn't really occurred to me that people might. But you wouldn't parse it as that when reading it in text, would you?

"OK, let's all gather round and look at the map."
wouldn't be mentally read as
"Oklahoma, let's all gather round and look at the map."

O.K. looks like it's supposed to stand for something, and feels too spread out on the page.

Agree that OK'd or OK'ing look ugly though. My instinct would be - if you must use OK as a verb - to use "okayed" and "okaying". But then that would make me inconsistent.

Dammit, why does such a useful word in everyday speech have to be so darned difficult to use in writing?

I spell it out, even when used as a verb "He okayed my idea."

I always wondered why okay would be spelled to include the abbreviation, O.K.

Thanks to Nancy (oll korrect), now I know.

Don't you love the Grammar forum?

IMHO it's AOK.

But only if you're doing text messaging. In my humble opinion, it's all okay by me.

Okay sounds okay to me.

benbradley said:

IMHO it's AOK.

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But if you're from Canada, it's spelled, eh okay.

OkEdokEE

I can't imagine why someone would go to all the same key-strokes and write "O.K." instead of just Okay. Ok?

Seriously though, I vote for 'okay,' or 'Okay' if it's at the beginning of a sentence.

Another vote for 'okay' here.

My vote is in for 'okay,' also, but it drives me insane that the Firefox auto spell check says that it's incorrect.

For those who really can't make up their mind, there's always the acceptable alternative, all right.

Some may argue modern usage allows for alright, but that variation is incorrect, even when used in dialogue.

I had actually heard the "oll korrect" story attributed to the way Thomas Jefferson would sign off on legislation. This from my college history professor, though it's hard to imagine that T.J. couldn't spell.
Actually, I've got this several different ways in my WIP, and I had made a note to watch for it on revision, and make sure they're all the same. So thanks, everybody!

They have different meanings, so I would say use the one that fits the context. OK stands for "All Correct", so if you can't substitute in "All correct" for your "ok" then it should probably be changed to "okay".

"Do you want to go to the movies?"
"All correct."

I would personally use "okay" all the time, since it will fill the function of both meanings.

Tally up another vote for "okay".

I just wanted to say, i really like your name Azura_Skye

Its very beautiful. I saw your nick in the thread, just felt like sharing

P.S- Its up to you really, whichever OK,ok,okay you use. Any of them are used and are flexible for any writing. It just depends on which one your feeling. Im sure you'll figure it out

Word

Azura Skye said:

You wanna know something funny? I decided to use okay in my MS so I used Word's Find and Replace feature. It changed not only OK to okay but it changed every look, took, book and any other word that had 'ok' in it. It was quite frustrating to go through and change lookayed back to looked. Urgh. I love Word but sometimes....grrrrr. LOL

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Word does this job well, but you didn't have the "find whole words only" box checked.

When you open the replace box, there's a place at the bottom that says "more." When you click on this, a set of check boxes comes up, and one of them says "find whole words only." If you check this, OK will be replaced, but words such as took, look, and book will be left as they are.