Reminder & [quite] A Bit of Trivia!

 Here is a reminder of a new event at the JPA pavilion:

The first Joe’s Pond Association Pitch game is this Tuesday, June 14 from 4 - 6 pm at the pavilion.  Please come and join the fun.  Bring your favorite beverage along with a snack, if you want.  Jeremy Grenier is leading this event and has developed the rules and a scorecard.  Please go to the JPA website and find these on the Home page and the Event page!  If any questions, please contact Jeremy.  

Also, Patty Conly and I have been invited to the Senior Meal Site on Tuesday, June 14, to enjoy a meal with seniors there and then talk about our book, West Danville, Vermont, Then and Now 1781-2021. If you would like to join us, we will be doing our presentation after their regular dinner. The meal site is at the Methodist Church on the Green in Danville. We will have a short slide show of some of the photos in the book and will talk about the project and answer questions. Of course, we'll have books available if anyone wishes to buy one - $45.

This morning youngest son, Jamie, gave me a bit of trivia. I was telling him about the photos I'd gone through yesterday and the conversation turned to when and how his great grandparents, William and Jane McAllan, came to this country. I mentioned that it was probably a difficult trip for her with six young girls to look after. I know they sailed on the Saxonia in 1909, and I expect they were in third-class accommodations. This would have been quite an improvement over what steerage passengers were offered on earlier vessels, but not posh, by any means. Jamie asked if I knew the origin of "posh." I didn't, and he told me the word comes from years ago when wealthy British were traveling back and forth to India. Their luggage was marked according to stateroom location in order to be on the cooler side of the ship. The acronym POSH which was stamped on their tickets and luggage, meaning, "port out, starboard home." 

Of course, I checked this out, but according to Merriam-Webster, nobody has been able to actually verify this; however, it does make sense, and explains why "posh" now means elite, upper-class or stylish.

So here's another bit of trivia: Did you ever wonder where our slang expression, "Ok," comes from? I never thought about it, but while exploring "posh," I stumbled onto this bit of information. It seems that in 1839, there was a report in a New York newspaper that a young woman presented her male friend with a parting remark, "O.K.K.B.W.P." which prompted a kiss from her friend. Her "shorthand" was translated to mean, "one kind kiss before we part," which was later further shortened to "OK." Apparently the present-day use of "lol," "btw", etc. are a good example of "what's old is new again."

There is yet another possibility for the origin of "OK." Martin Van Buren was nicknamed "Old Kinderhook" because he came from Kinderhook, N.Y. During his campaign, "OK Clubs" were formed supporting him. This evolved to club members being "OK." Then comes Andrew Jackson who preferred to use the Choctaw word, "okeh" and apparently used it when approving documents. Woodrow Wilson concurred, and he was reportedly asked why he wrote "okeh" on documents and not "OK," his response was, "Because it is wrong."

Today we use OK or okay in writing, talking, texting; it is perfectly acceptable to most. However, there are purists who consider it slang and it is doubtful they would ever be heard uttering it aloud, let alone ever having it appear in their manuscripts. 

And that's my musings for the day. If you made it here, to the end, I thank you! You are a true friend and I hail you with a virtual high-five and a rousing "OK!!"