el_flaco все записи автора Сегодня я решил начать публикацию серии эссе, написанных для радиостанции Voice of America, посвященных истории происхождения некоторых английских идиом.

Данный выпуск посвящен выражению A-Okay.

No one really knows when many of our expressions became popular. But others can be easily dated. One such expression is A-Okay. It means the situation is fine; there is no cause for worry.
A-Okay is a space-age expression. It was used in 1961 during the flight of an American astronaut. John Powers, a spokesman for NASA, the national space agency, used "A-Okay" to tell the world that everything on the space flight was operating perfectly.
Some experts say the expression did not begin with the space age. One story is that it was first used during the early days of the telephone, to tell an operator that his message had been received. The sound of the O in Okay often was lost in the noise on the telephone line. So the sharper sounding "A" was added to the expression, making a more easily understood "A-Okay."
A-Okay is one of several expressions that may have come into the language earlier but became popular only when they were used in the space progam. These expressions quickly became part of everyday speech. This happened because most people had television, and could see and hear all the major events of a space flight. People spent hours watching special TV reports of every space flight.
They could hear the astronauts talk with NASA scientists and engineers. In the first days of space flight, the astronauts seemed to be speaking a new language. But soon, the public accepted and began to use many expressions of this space language.
One such expression is "all systems go." It means everything is ready, let us begin. NASA uses it to mean that all the systems on a spacecraft have been examined and are working correctly. All systems go means the decision has been made to continue with the launch of the spacecraft. It is also used outside the space program to tell someone that you are ready to start a job or activity.
Countdown became a popular word of the space age.
Space scientists would count down the seconds until launch. They counted backwards from 10 seconds, 9,8,7,6,5,4,3, 2, 1 and liftoff. Some language experts say the American people first heard countdowns in the late 1940's during broadcasts of atomic bomb tests in Nevada and on some islands in the Pacific. But countdown did not become a common expression until the space flights of the 1960's.
Another space expression that has become common in recent years is "burnout." It meant that a launch rocket had used all its fuel. Space ships were launched by more than one rocket. The first rocket would lift the ship high above the earth. Then it would "burn out" and a second rocket would fire to carry the vehicle into earth orbit.
Soon, people began to use burnout to describe what happens to a person who works too hard under too much stress for too long. Such a "burned out" person is like a rocket with no more fuel. He has no energy or desire to continue.