OK? Whatever!
I received the following error message from Visual Studio after failing to load a solution file.
So there I am, sitting in front my monitor, thinking how small of a creature I am in this endless universe. I’m also thinking of everything that was going on in the world as I was wasting my time in front of this dialog box. Suddenly, I ask myself "What exactly does OK mean? Why is there an OK button? What’s OK about this error message?". Since I’m not someone who easily accepts "imposed standards", I decided to further my little investigation…This is what I’ve found:
According to Whatis.com’s definition of OK,
OK (pronounced oh-KAY and occasionally spelled okay) is a short way to say "I agree." It’s sometimes encountered in computer messages that seek the user’s confirmation of a request.
Now, I could also search for a definition for "agree", but I don’t feel like having a recursive day today, so we’ll "agree" that "agree" means "agree"…agreed?
So what exactly am I agreeing to by clicking on that ‘OK button’? Am I agreeing that I’ve lost a precious minute of my life by trying to load the solution with Visual Studio? Am I agreeing that there’s a bug in the product and there’s not much I can do to help out my good friends at Microsoft? Am I agreeing to the fact that I’m a slave to this dialog box? There’s no democracy! I can’t even express my madness, because there’s only one way to go…the "OK way". I hate it!
I then stumbled upon the Urban Dictionary’s definition for ‘OK’, which I prefer more than the previous definition, since it applies perfectly in this context:
Word used to pacify someone making an unreasonable or irritating demand. A word which means "alright". Can also be used in frustration. One of the best words in the english language. It is also used when one does not know what to say.
Yes! That’s exactly the definition of ‘OK’ I had in mind! All this rationale influenced me in redefining what the ‘OK button’ should’ve said instead…
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