a main thing about Martin Van Buren is that he was Dutch. Not straight off the BOAT Dutch, but English was not his first language. Like most of the Presidents that would follow him, he had to learn English from scratch.
Somehow, he got elected anyway. I guess being Dutch wasn't too huge of a scandal in those times. Martin Van Buren was generally good about evading scandals except for the Petticoat Affair and also marrying his cousin.
OKAY, full disclosure, it was his "first cousin once removed." I suppose that's harmless. No kind of mutant "Van Buren's Disease" trickled down from the incident, and she at least was not an intern.
another main thing about Martin Van Buren was that an economic depression occurred under his Presidential watch (figuratively).
The economy got so bad that he was nicknamed "Martin Van Ruin." That is not a joke. Well actually it IS a joke, just not one of mine. It was other people saying it.
I have been unable to confirm this, since most of my researchers are not old enough to be dead yet, but Martin Van Buren is widely believed to have been the President/person that popularized the usage of the expression "O.K." Some people choose to spell it out fully as "okay," including me. I can see that I did it earlier, in between breaks.
In summary, whether or not it's factual that Martin Van Buren invented saying that, he is always going to be okie-dokie with me.
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