Well-travelled English words

In fact okay is far from being the most widely diffused English word—that honor would probably go to either Coca-Cola or CIA.

But there's something comforting in the idea that okay is America's most successful linguistice export—it lets us believe that the triumph of English reflects the allure of our popular culture rather than our economic or political clout.

Geoffrey Nunberg, “Size Doesn’t Matter,” in The Years of Talking Dangerously (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009), p. 19