Q 01/05

"OK" first appeared in print in 1839 as a jokey abbreviation of what?

A) Oll korrect

B) Old Kinderhook

C) Orl klear

D) Ober kommando

Answer · why

A) Oll korrect

The Boston Morning Post was riding a fad for comic misspellings; Martin Van Buren's "Old Kinderhook" campaign spread it nationwide the next year.

Q 02/05

Which US president's 1840 campaign nickname helped make "OK" a national word?

A) Andrew Jackson

B) Martin Van Buren

C) William Henry Harrison

D) James K. Polk

Answer · why

B) Martin Van Buren

His supporters said OK stood for Old Kinderhook, after his New York hometown; the word is now described as the most spoken on the planet.

Q 03/05

When "dude" first appeared in print in 1883, what did it mean?

A) A cattle rancher

B) A California surfer

C) A fussily dressed man

D) A lazy layabout

Answer · why

C) A fussily dressed man

Cowboys used it to sneer at city slickers, which is why a dude ranch is a ranch for tourists.

Q 04/05

The modern slang sense of "cool" is credited to which jazz saxophonist?

A) Charlie Parker

B) John Coltrane

C) Coleman Hawkins

D) Lester Young

Answer · why

D) Lester Young

The word travelled from African-American Vernacular English into jazz circles in the 1940s and never left.

Q 05/05

"Bling bling" entered mainstream English after a 1999 single by which New Orleans rapper?

A) B.G.

B) Juvenile

C) Master P

D) Mystikal

Answer · why

A) B.G.

The Cash Money track put the word in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary by 2002 and Merriam-Webster by 2006.