Antedating of "Gung Ho"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> I looked at the Sept. 24, 1941 Oakland Tribune article on Newspaperarchive and it appears to be correctly dated.
>
> Fred Shapiro
Looks OK to me too.

It seems to be the title of a short film, maybe a newsreel. Maybe it's a
film about Chinese military activities. Impossible to be sure of the
interpretation of "gung ho" in this instance, in isolation.

However, if it is sure that Carlson used the expression in his 1941
book, it can probably be assumed to be closely related.

If the OED shows a 1942 instance of "kung-hou" in equivalent sense, I
wonder whether the etymology is firm. I don't think "kung-hou" is a
likely casual phonetic transcription of Chinese (modern Pinyin) "gonghe"
(and maybe not of anything), but I think it is a proper Wade-Giles
transcription of Chinese (modern Pinyin) "gonghou" ... and Wade-Giles
transcription would have been the 'standard' of the time, I think.
"Gung-ho" would be an OK casual phonetic transcription of either
"gonghe" or "gonghou", I think. The early existence of these two forms
would speak for a Chinese etymon like (Pinyin) "gonghou", not "gonghe".
Of course there are other possible explanations, including sporadic errors.

-- Doug Wilson

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