Is It Okay to Write 'OK' Instead of 'Okay'?

Well, it appears I’m in the minority.  Again.  What a surprise.  I’ve long been a stickler for proper writing and word usage as it was pounded into the six of us by our mom.  Constantly.  I do the same with my own kids.  Constantly.  

One word that has often irritated me when seeing it in print is “OK”.  To me, that’s not “okay”.  Get it?  It’s not okay with me that writers use “OK”.  Okay?  Besides, how am I or anyone else to know when OK means ‘okay’ or when it denotes the great state of Oklahoma.

This boiled over while reading the prose of an otherwise talented writer at a local newspaper, so I did some research.  It was through this brief study that I learned of my minority status with respect to the particular word at hand, but what I learned caused me to be even more puzzled.  OK is short for 'oll korrect' or 'ole kurreck', which are both ironic misspellings of the term ‘all correct’. History tells that OK apparently arose from an abbreviation trend that was popular in Boston in the early 19^th century.  Where was Spellcheck when we badly needed it?

So, I shall continue to use the spelled word ‘okay’ in my writing, both business and personal.  In fact, when I next send something via mail to my sister in Tulsa, the address shall be to Tulsa, Okay.