gung ho

Click to Play

Mark Wahlberg 'Not the Thrill-Seeker I Used to Be'

Click to Play

How to Do the Gung Fu Art Methods

Click to Play

How to Make Gunge

Click to Play

Yogic Arts: Source Power - Standing Set

View more Literature & Language videos

adjective

Showing or having enthusiasm: ardent, enthusiastic, fervent, keen¹, mad, rabid, warm, zealous. Informal crazy. Slang nuts. See concern/unconcern.

Also, gung-ho. Extremely enthusiastic or dedicated, as in She was gung ho about her new job. This expression was introduced in 1942 as a training slogan for a U.S. Marine battalion, derived from what an American officer thought were Mandarin Chinese words for "work together." It was actually an abbreviation for the name of Chinese industrial cooperatives.

It was the best of translations; it was the worst of translations. It showed American admiration for the Chinese; it showed American misunderstanding of them. In any case, it was adopted into English with gung-ho enthusiasm.

We know exactly who was responsible for our gung ho: Lt. Col. Evans Carlson of the U.S. Marines. And we know when he first used it in English: during World War II, early in 1942, in China, to the troops of his newly formed Second Raider Battalion, which fought against the japanese invaders alongside the Chinese 8th Route Army. Carlson told Life magazine in 1943: "I was trying to build up the same sort of working spirit I had seen in China where all the soldiers dedicated themselves to one idea and worked together to put that idea over. I told the boys about it again and again. I told them of the motto of the Chinese Cooperatives, Gung Ho. It means Work Together--Work in Harmony."

Well, it doesn't quite mean that. Gung Ho is simply the third and fifth syllables of Chung-Guo Gung-Yeh Ho-Tso She, the name of the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives Association. Gung and Ho were used together as an abbreviation of the name and on signs designating the cooperative. It is true, however, that gung means "worker" or "work," and ho means "to agree," "joined," or "the whole," although the two together do not make a sentence or phrase in Chinese. As the exploits of Carlson's raiders became known, they filled America with gung ho enthusiasm. The term became an enduring part of the English vocabulary.

Chinese is the Number 1 language of the world, with nearly a billion speakers of its various dialects. It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, to which Tibetan and Burmese also belong. Gung ho is from the dominant Mandarin dialect, spoken by more than seven hundred million people. English has imported about a hundred Chinese words, everything from ginseng (1654) and tea (1655) to yin and yang (1671), kowtow (1804) and (in a literal translation) brainwashing (1950). The word china itself, which derives from the name of the Chinese Qin dynasty, has been used in English since 1579 to mean fine porcelain.

Eager and ready to accomplish whatever task necessary.

For other uses, see Gung-ho (disambiguation).

Gung ho is a slang term in American English used to mean "enthusiastic" or "dedicated" originally used in Marine slang. It is an anglicised pronunciation of "gōng hé" (工合), the shortened version and slogan of the "gōngyè hézuòshè" (工業合作社) or Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, which was abbreviated as INDUSCO in English.

The two Chinese characters forming the word Gung Ho are translated individually as "Work" and "Together".

The linguist Albert Moe studied both the origin and the usage in English. He concludes that the term is an "Americanism that is derived from the Chinese, but its several accepted American meanings have no resemblance whatever to the recognized meaning in the original language" and that its "various linguistic uses, as they have developed in the United States, have been peculiar to American speech." In Chinese, concludes Moe, "this is neither a slogan nor a battle cry; it is only a name for an organization." ^[1]

The term was picked up by United States Marine Corps Major Evans Carlson from his New Zealand friend, Rewi Alley, one of the founders of the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives. Carlson explained in a 1943 interview: "I was trying to build up the same sort of working spirit I had seen in China where all the soldiers dedicated themselves to one idea and worked together to put that idea over. I told the boys about it again and again. I told them of the motto of the Chinese Cooperatives, Gung Ho. It means Work Together-Work in Harmony...." ^[2]

Later Carlson used gung ho during his (unconventional) command of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. From there it spread throughout the U.S. Marine Corps (hence the association between the two), where it was used as an expression of spirit and into American society as a whole when the phrase became the title of a 1943 war film, Gung Ho!, about the 2nd Raider Battalion's raid on Makin Island in 1942.

See also

• United States Marine Corps slang

References

1. ^ Moe, 26, 30.
2. ^ Don Burke, "Carlson of the Raiders," Life, September 20, 1943, quote in Moe, p. 58.

External links

• Albert F. Moe (1967) "Gung Ho", American Speech. The American Dialect Society.
• Gung Ho, chinapage.com
• Gung Ho according to Evans Carlson

v t e United States Marine Corps Leadership Secretary of the Navy · Under Secretary of the Navy · Commandant of the Marine Corps · Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps · Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps · Four-star generals · United States Congress (House Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces · Senate Subcommittee on Seapower) Major commands Organization of the Marine Corps · Headquarters Marine Corps · Marine Forces Command (II Marine Expeditionary Force) · Marine Forces Pacific (I Marine Expeditionary Force · III Marine Expeditionary Force) · Marine Forces Reserve · Fleet Marine Force (Atlantic · Pacific) Structure Marine Air-Ground Task Force · Bases · Battalions · Marine aviation · Marine Expeditionary Unit · MARSOC · Recon (Force · Division) Personnel & training Personnel: Rank insignia · MOS · Notable Marines · Historical Marines · Criminal Investigation Division · Judge Advocate Division · Chaplain of the Marine Corps · Hispanic Marines · Associated organizations Training: Recruit Training · School of Infantry · Officer Candidates School · The Basic School · Martial Arts Program Uniforms & equipment Uniforms · Awards · Badges · Weapons · Vehicles and aircraft · Individual equipment History & traditions History · Culture · Acronyms and terms · Birthday Ball · Eagle, Globe, and Anchor · Marine Band · Drum and Bugle Corps · Service Numbers · Marine Corps War Memorial · Flag · Marine One · Marines' Hymn · National Museum · Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima · Rifleman's Creed · Semper Fidelis · Silent Drill Platoon · Toys for Tots Portal:United States Marine Corps  · Category:United States Marine Corps

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - begejstret, fandenivoldsk, krigerisk

Français (French)
adj. - va-t'en-guerre, (trop) enthousiaste

Deutsch (German)
adj. - wild entschlossen

Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - υπερπρόθυμος, υπερενθουσιώδης

Italiano (Italian)
fanatico, voglioso di combattere

Português (Portuguese)
adj. - tola ou excessivamente entusiasmado

Русский (Russian)
раз-два, взяли!, фанатичный, легковерный, горячий (о человеке)

Español (Spanish)
adj. - leal, entusiasta, oficioso

Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - gåpåig

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
起劲的, 协力的, 热心的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 起勁的, 協力的, 熱心的

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 열렬한, 열광적인

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 忠勇無双の

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮נלהב, מהיר-פעולה, חסר-מעצורים‬