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  3. Allan Metcalf s new book claims that the word "OK" is America’s greatest inv

Allan Metcalf s new book claims that the word "OK" is America’s greatest inv

游客2023-11-09  32
问题     Allan Metcalf s new book claims that the word "OK" is America’s greatest invention. This offers a pair of provocations. How can "OK" be an invention? On a certain day, a certain guy just dreamed up the expression that has become the most frequently spoken word on the planet? And even if it is an invention, can one little word really be greater than jazz, baseball, and the telephone? Is it better than The Simpsons?
    The answer to the first question, implausible as it sounds, is yes. In OK: The Improbable Story of America’s Greatest Word, Metcalf locates the first use of OK in an obscure corner of a Boston newspaper on March 23, 1839. As for the alleged greatness of the word, Metcalf s slim volume doesn’t entirely persuade you that OK is a more valuable invention than, say, electric light. But the fact that he even raises the question is intriguing. If it does nothing else, Metcalf makes you acutely aware of how universal and vital the word has become.
    True story: the world’s most popular word began as a joke. In the late 1830s, America’s newspapers had great enthusiasm for abbreviations—also, to judge by Metcalf s account, a sorry sense of humor. He devotes a chapter to trying to explain why readers of the Boston Morning Post might have been amused to see "o. k." used as a jokey abbreviation for "oll korrect," an intentional misspelling of "all correct." Apparently you had to be there. But the word soon got an enormous boost from Andrew Jackson—or his enemies, anyway. They circulated the rumor that the man of the people was barely literate and approved papers with the initials "O. K." for "oll korrect." It was a joke, Metcalf concludes, "but without it there’d be no OK."
    The word didn’t remain a joke for long. Telegraph operators began using it as a way to say "all clear." It became ubiquitous, turning up in all corners of the world, and beyond. Metcalf points out that OK was technically the first word spoken on the surface of the moon.
    When you pause to consider what a weird and wonderful little word OK is, the most remarkable thing isn’t that it’s so great or that it was invented but that it’s American. To foreigners in the 20th century, Metcalf writes, the word embodied "American simplicity, pragmatism, and optimism." To us today, the word sums up "a whole two-letter American philosophy of tolerance, even admiration for difference." [br] How was "OK" created?
选项 A、It was created to shorten a word.
B、It was created by mistake.
C、It was created to play a joke on a reporter.
D、It was created to convey a sense of humor.
答案 D
解析 第3段第1句中的joke和第3句中的jokey，都表明OK是源于一个玩笑，且该段第2句指出这体现了a sorry sense of humor，故D与文意最相符。OK这个词的出现包含了“缩写”和“幽默”这两个要素，主要是后者，且OK也并不是一个单词的缩写，故A不正确；根据第3段第3句末的intentionalmisspelling可排除B；C中的a joke on a reporter缺乏原文依据。
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