Chinese week in EVS: 几个起源于中文的英文单词的来历：Gung-ho（热心的，狂热的）、chopsticks（筷子）、ketchup（番茄酱）、kowtow（叩头）、brainwashing（洗脑）

Word of the day: Gung-ho

And today starts our Chinese week with the word: Gung-ho - enthusiastic, keen.

Originates from the kung (work) and ho (together), which was the name and slogan for the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives. It was introduced to English by Major Evans Carlson in 1942 who explained in a Time interview one year later: “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.” The military success of Major Carlson at Makin Island in the Pacific was made into a blockbuster film in 1943. Named Gung-ho, the word quickly entered general American use.

Now used commonly to describe very zealous or enthusiastic behaviour, Gung- ho is also used colloquially to describe a can-do attitude.

Word of the day: Chopsticks

The English term “chopsticks”  was probably derived from the Chinese word for quick: “chop, chop”. It was first used in English by the explorer William Dampier, who made three circumnavigations of the world between 1690 and 1715. Chopsticks was actually only one of around 80 words Dampier added to the English language. So we will hear from him again (another one of his additions is, for example, avocado).

The equivalent of a knife and fork has been used in Asia for some 3,000 years. Nowadays chopsticks tend to be disposable. China and Japan produce most chopsticks out of wood, each year 45 billion pairs are produced in China and 24 billion in Japan.

But chopsticks is also a tune played on the piano. The Celebrated Chop Waltz, a waltz written for the piano by the British composer Euphemia Allen became popular in the late 1870s.

Word of the day: Ketchup

In the 1690s, Chinese cuisine  featured a mixture of pickled fish and spices called ketsiap. Various different forms were found across Asia in the 1700s,   and a version with tomatoes was created by Sandy Addison and found its way into the Sugar House Book. But the key date was 1876, when Heinz introduced its tomato ketchup and brought the red delight to American consumers. It turned out to become a success story that hasn’t reached its pick yet. In 1917, the company produced 12 million bottles worldwide, in 2012, 650 million.  Instead fo pickled fish, the ingredients of modern day ketchup include tomato concentrate, vinegar, corn syrup, salt, spice, natural flavours, onion powder and jalapenos.

Word of the day: Kowtow

From Chinese kou tou meaning knock on the head. In traditional Chinese culture, it was necessary to display reverence to superiors, and lower ranked persons needed to bow deeply, or kowtow by prostrating themselves on the floor and touching the ground with their heads. In the Qing Period the standard procedure to greet a superior was to perform “three kneelings and nine prostrations.” The word was first noted in English at the beginning of the 1800s among Asian diplomats , who were debating if to kowtow or not to kowtow –  in an effort to find the middle path between respect and submission.

Nowadays the word kowtow is also used to mean deferring to another person’s opinion.

Word of the day: Brainwashing

The word Brainwashing probably originated from the Chinese phrase, xi nao, which means “wash brain.“ In its current form it was first used in 1950 by Edward Hunter. He was a journalist and US intelligence agent who reported on Chinese brainwashing at the time of the Korean war. He described the method of breaking down psychological resistance in order to create good members of society.

A differentiation was made between the sensory and physical deprivation as observed in GIs who had been captured by the North Koreans and were making anti-American statements.  The current meaning focuses on the consistent long-term use of mass propaganda to ensure support for a totalitarian state, although it is also used to describe an act of exerting pressure on a person to accept a belief he or she considers undesirable.