Skip to main content

Booz? O.k.!

March 2023
1min read

Richard H. Hopper’s revelation that the expression “O.K.” was popularized during the 1840 presidential campaign of Martin Van Buren, to signify his nickname “Old Kinderhook,” calls to mind another American expression traceable to the same campaign. Van Buren’s opponent, William Henry Harrison (“Old Tippecanoe”), distributed thousands of whiskey bottles in the shape of a log cabin. The name of the manufacturer was prominently stamped on the bottom: E. C. Booz Distillery of Philadelphia. Although the word “booze” has been traced back to Middle English bousen (“to carouse”), it became a synonym for cheap liquor as a result of the campaign of 1840. Apparently booze proved to be a more popular political symbol than “O.K.”—Harrison was elected.

While Mr. Hopper’s etymology was flawless, his Morse Code could stand some improvement. “O.K.” would be “dash-dash-dash dash-dot-dash” in Morse Code. The “dot-dot dash-dotdash” that Mr. Hopper suggests would be “IK,” who didn’t arrive on the political scene until a century later.


Gerald Uelmen is correct that dot-dot is, and always has been, the Morse Code symbol for I. However, in the American Morse Code, now largely superseded by the International Code, dot-space-dot was the symbol for O. This space led to misreadings, and the letter was changed to the dash-dash-dash we now ordinarily used.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "February/March 1985"

Authored by: Deborah O’keefe

They were called “friendly visitors” and they indeed visited, but could they really be considered friendly?

Authored by: Coley Taylor

The years the famous writer spent in their town were magic to a young boy and his sister.

Authored by: Oliver E. Allen

On the eve of the Normandy invasion, a training mission in the English Channel came apart in fire and horror. For years, the grim story was suppressed.

Authored by: Rebecca Martin

Israel Sack made a fortune by seeing early the craft in fine old American furniture

Authored by: James Card

A little-known ancestor of the nightly news comes to light

Authored by: William Serrin

At a time of crisis for American labor, an organizer looks back on the turbulent fifty-year career that brought him from the shop floor to the presidency of the United Automobile Workers.

Authored by: Lones Seiber

The GIs came home to find that a political machine had taken over their Tennessee county. What they did about it astounded the nation.

Authored by: Lynne Cheney

He built a career and a fortune out of shocking his fellow Americans

Authored by: Robert Uhl

A young artist takes on a venerable genre

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.