390
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. m. MAY 20, 1911.
care of Bradley, Astronomer Royal, when the
reformed calendar was adopted in England.
" A general rule to determine Easter at any time was discovered by the German mathe- matician Gauss, and published in 1800 ; for it and its proof consult a treatise by S. Butcher (then Bishop of Meath), entitled ' General Proof of Gauss's Rule for finding Easter Day,' which appeared at Dublin in 1876."
See also the articles on finding the date of Easter at 9 S. v. 281 ; xi. 182, 258 ; 10 S. i. 324, 352, 390 ; iii. 281 ; iv. 136, 166, 195.1
GOETHE QUOTATION. Can any of your correspondents tell me in which of Goethe's works the following is to be found ? "A single moment may be decisive not only of man's life, but of his whole future." I should like to have the German words if possible. E. E. DAVIES.
"O.K.": NEW EXPLANATION.
(US. iii. 266.)
IN the 'N.E.D.' will be found examples dated 1847 and 1852, proving that the " new explanation " (which has been going the rounds of the American press for the past four months) is nonsense. Among my notes are a score or more of examples earlier than 1847 one from the Rev. Wm. L. McCalla's
- Adventures in Texas,' 1841, p. 120 ; the
others from various American newspapers of 1840. That was the year of the famous "log cabin and hard cider" Presidential campaign, Harrison being the Whig candi- date and Van Buren the Democrat. On 17 June a convention was held at Worcester, Mass., and the following extract is taken from The Atlas, a Boston paper, of the 18th :
"On Tuesday afternoon and evening, the Dele- gates from different parts of the Commonwealth, began to pour into Worcester by the railroads, by stages, in private carriages, and on horseback, in
great numbers A part of the Barre delegation
came in on horseback, and they made a fine show. Ihey were nearly all dressed in black coats and white pantaloons, and wore a Log Cabin button on their hats as a cockade. The number of persons on horseback, was about sixty. Carriages followed, containing the Barre Whig Association, and bearing a banner with the motto, 'Our measures, the good of the country Our men, Harrison and Tyler.' The band rode in a stage, which had a barrel of hard cider on the baggage rack, marked with large letters, ' O.K.' oil korrect."
When the election took place the following October and November, a Whig landslide occurred, and the Whig papers all over the country broke out with the letters " O.K." in
head -lines. It was then that the letters
came into popular use.
But the same letters had been employed at least once at a much earlier period. In 1788 Andrew Jackson went to Nashville, Tenn., and the records of Sumner County contain this entry :
"October 6th, 1790. Andrew Jackson, Esq > proved a bill of sale from Hugh McGary to Gasper Mansker, for a negro man, which was O.K."
In 1860 James Parton, from whose ' Life of Andrew Jackson ' the above is quoted, said : "A common western mistake for O.R., which means Ordered Recorded. Hence, perhaps, the saying ' O.K.' " (i. 136). In 1871 De Vere wrote :
"The story goes that General Jackson was
not much at home in the art of spelling, and his friend and admirer, Major Jack Downing, found therefore no difficulty in convincing the readers of his ' Letters ' that the President employed the letters O.K. as an indorsement of applications for office and other papers. They were intended to stand for * all correct,' which the old gentleman pre- ferred writing oil korrect." 'Americanisms,' p. 277.
Two collections of Jack Downing letters were published in book form. One, entitled ' The Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing,' was written by Seba Smith of the Portland '(Maine) Courier, of which paper he was editor, and in which the letters first appeared ;* this was published at Boston in 1833. The other, entitled ' Letters of J. Downing,' was published in New York in 1834, the letters having first appeared in The New York Daily Advertiser ; and this collection was written by Charles Augustus Davis. Neither in Smith's book nor in Davis' s is there a word about Jackson and O.K. Nevertheless it does not follow that De Vere was wrong. In The Atlas of 19 August, 1840, was printed this item :
" ' O.K.' These initials, according to Jack Downing, were first used by Gen. Jackson. ' Those papers, Amos, are all correct. I have marked them O.K.' (oil korrect). The Gen. was never good at spelling." (Amos Kendall was a member of Jackson's Cabinet.)
That Jackson was in the habit of spelling " all correct " "oil korrect " may be put down as a joke invented by Jack Downing, though it has yet to be shown when and where the Downing letter originating the joke first appeared. It is by no means im- probable that Parton' s suggestion will turn out to be correct. What is needed is further evidence between 1790 and 1840.
ALBEBT MATTHEWS.
Boston, U.S.
[MR. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL also thanked for reply.]
