Allen Walker Read (1906 - October 16, 2002) was an Americanetymologist, best known for his studies into the words "okay" and "fuck". 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in Leap years). ... 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The United States of America — also referred to as the United States, the U.S.A., the U.S., America, the States, or (archaically) Columbia—is a federal republic of 50 states located primarily in central North America (with the exception of two states: Alaska and Hawaii). ... An etymologist is a linguist who focuses primarily on the origins of words. ... Okay is a term of approval or assent, often written as OK. When used to describe the quality of a thing, it denotes acceptability, being neither poor nor perfect. ... Fuck, a word connected to sexual intercourse, is among the strongest and most controversial vulgarisms in the modern English language and probably the most well known profanity in the world. ...
His first work, Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary, was privately published in Paris in 1935 since its material was considered too racy for American presses; it included bathroom graffiti such as: 1935 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
When you want to shit in ease
Place your elbows on your knees
Put your hands against your chin
Let a fart and then begin
It was eventually published in the United States in 1977, under the title Classic American Graffiti. For the album by Ash, see 1977 (album). ...
External links
An essay (http://www.goodbyemag.com/oct02/read.html) on goodbyemag.com.
An obituary (http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1403400) on Economist.com.
Scrutinising newspapers from the 1840s, which he knew to be the term's birth period, Read discovered that it stood for "Old Kinderhook", a reference to the eighth US president, Martin Van Buren (1837-41), a native of Kinderhook, New York.
One example against standards that Read liked to quote was the arbitrary naming of the Rocky mountains, which had been known in 1804 as the Northern Andes, and had subsequently been called the Stony, Shining, and even Enchanted mountains.
Read was born in Winnebago, Minnesota, got a master's degree from the University of Iowa at the age of 20, and won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford.
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