I'm about to start my first novel and I just wondered if there are any specifics as to using ok or okay. Is it just a case of pick one and be consistant all the way through?
Ok or okay?
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Yup, consistency. I use okay but dictionary says OK is OK too. Lowercase ok isn't mentioned.
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Either is acceptable as far as I know. I personally use 'okay', but as dpat said, consistency is key.
A language in use is a language in change. Right now, all agents and publishers accept okay as correct. Many also accept OK (note that both letters must be capitalized--Ok is not considered correct), but not all.
Assuming I live a normal life span, I fully expect to see OK accepted everywhere before I die.
Maryn, who prefers okay but is adaptable despite her advance years
Assuming I live a normal life span, I fully expect to see OK accepted everywhere before I die.
Maryn, who prefers okay but is adaptable despite her advance years
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OK is a personal pet-peeve of mine. It bugs me whenever I'm reading a book and see it in there. 
But like others said, it's probably... okay ( ) either way you go, so long as it isn't changing back and forth.
But like others said, it's probably... okay ( ) either way you go, so long as it isn't changing back and forth.
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Both okay and OK are fine, I'd imagine, so long as you don't swap and change between them throughout your MS. As dpaterso mentioned up thread, consistency is the key. Oh, and I personally use 'okay'.
I use okay becaus eit simply looks better, and, I think, makes more sense. But both have been acceptable since I was a youngster, and there are many, including a fair number of grammarians, English teachers, etc., who say OK is the correct choice.
I personally use OK. I will point out though that OK is in fact an abbreviation. According to its etymology entry on Merriam Webster online, it stands for oll korrect, which is a facetious alteration of "all correct". I'm assuming the word "okay" came from the abbreviation, which means "OK" is the original, older term.
Unlike contractions ('do not' contracted down to 'don't' etc), there's no phonetic difference between 'ok' and 'okay', so you can't really say you're using it to portray stylistic choices in a character speach pattern (like you do with 'don't'). There's only a written difference, so unless youre portraying character through their handwriting, I'd say why use it? If you write 'ok' in narrative, all it's going to show is the slang usage of the author.
This may be true, but no one knows for sure where the term actually came from. There are many theories, and the term was used so widely, and so early, that I doubt we'll ever know for sure.
The big problem with this theory is that the "oll korrect" spelling for "all correct" didn't appear in print until many years after OK was already being used in print.
So it seems there is a problem.
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I use 'okay'. Generally in writing, it's preferable to use the word-form of something when it's appropriate: so not 'There were 4 people in my family', but 'There were four people in my family.'
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