[Ads-l] antedating of "gung ho"

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED: Nov. 8, 1942

1941 _Evening Bulletin_ (Providence, R.I.) (Jan. 31) 21:  There is a new
battle cry being shouted in China today. It is Gung-ho and it means simply,
"Work together." ...Gung-ho is the slogan of the Chinese Industrial
Co-operatives.

1941 _Oakland Tribune_ (Sept. 19) 33 [ad]: GUNG HO (In Chinese, "Work
Together") The Story of United China.
,
1941 _Evening Herald and Express_ (L.A.) (Sept. 5) 21: When Dan Arnstein of
New York City went to China as President Roosevelt's man to speed traffic
over the Burma Road, he learned a new phrase. "Gung Ho!" was the phrase,
meaning "work together," and it's a slogan we need in America
today....Britain and America still have much to learn about the power of
"Gung Ho!"

1941 _Washington Post_ (Dec. 7) III 3: Mrs. Truman Potter will give a talk
explaining Gung Ho. Gung Ho is Chinese for working together.

The Jan. 31 cite is from a story that had appeared slightly earlier in
_Survey Graphic_, not online.

These instances show that Lt. Col. Evans Carlson wasn't alone in
introducing the slogan into English, though doubtless it was popularized
only by newspaper reports of the attack on Makin I. by his Second Marine
Raider Battalion on Aug. 17-18, 1942. It was popularized further by the
movie "Gung Ho!", released in Jan., 1944.

NewspaperArchive finds some twenty occurrences of "Gung ho!" before August,
1942.

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org