On: Academics Make Theoretical Breakthrough in Random Number Generation

[thaumasiotes]

> The term 'OK' originally meant 'Our Kind'. There was another term "NOK" meaning "Not Our Kind" which got lost.

I frown on casually lying to people over the internet. The term 'OK' originally stood for 'all correct'.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=OK

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/503/what-does-ok-st...

You're trying to allude to NOKD, which is (1) completely unrelated, and (2) not lost.

[JoeAltmaier → thaumasiotes]

Nah. Alluding to the usage of the word in my youth. But go ahead, defer to authority and call names! This is the internet after all.

[thaumasiotes → JoeAltmaier]

Are you claiming that a usage from your youth predates ("originally meant") the usage of 1838?

[JoeAltmaier → thaumasiotes]

And for something as trivial as a two-letter acronym, does the first appearance in print cement it for all time? Does it constrain conventional usage forever? I'd check out some other acronyms to get an idea of their various usages and meanings over time. There's a site for that.

[mywittyname → JoeAltmaier]

In the context of "originally meant" (your words), yes, the original meaning of a word is going to be its meaning when the word first came into usage. Sure, word meaning can change over time, but their original meaning shouldn't.