[Ads-l] Chop chop (antedating, 1795)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

OED's earliest example of "chop chop" (as in "quick, quickly; hurry
up!") appeared in May, 1834.

Below are some earlier sightings.

(In short, my guess is that "chop chop" was first popularized in
English after a British diplomatic expedition to China -- and
Canton/Guangzhou specifically -- between 1792 and 1794.)

-- Bonnie

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Chop chop ........ To make haste.

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The above appears in a glossary on the last page (unnumbered) of
Aeneas Anderson's _A Narrative of the British Embassy to China in the
Years 1792, 1793, and 1794_. London: J. Debrett, 1795;
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Narrative_of_the_British_Embassy_to_Ch/zeE-AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=chop%20chop.
Anderson was valet to George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney, British
Ambassador to China, who led the expedition. Anderson's book was
subsequently translated into (at least) German and French.

Other members of the delegation put together accounts of the
expedition. The most prominent seems to have been George Staunton's
_An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to
the Emperor of China_ (first edition, 1797). "Chop chop," however,
does not appear in the editions I've been able to check.

Johann Hüttners, a tutor, was also on the expedition. He seems to have
reworked Staunton's account and made his own additions, producing
_Nachricht von der Brittischen Gesandtschaftsreise durch China und
einen Theil der Tartarei_ in 1797. There, "chop chop" appears in a
footnote in a section on Cantonese Pidgin English and is translated as
"geschwind." (https://www.google.com/books/edition/J_C_H%C3%BCttners_Nachricht_von_der_Brittisc/Qm9CAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22chop+chop%22+canton&pg=PA160&printsec=frontcover).
A French translation of this Staunton/Hüttners work, published in
1798/1799,  has "chop chop, pour vîte"
(https://www.google.com/books/edition/VOYAGE_DANS_L_INT%C3%89RIEUR_DE_LA_CHINE_ET/jK43CM-rNp4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=chop+chop%22&pg=PA332&printsec=frontcover.

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The night was dark, and we were running at least nine knots an hour
[on the Canton river], and two pilots and the watch were looking out,
yet we ran down a boat with a family. A fearful shriek from many
voices was our first intimation that a boat was in our way, for it had
no light up, or it might have been avoided and saved. The pilot ran
aft with terror in his looks, explaining "Hi -- yah -- no can talkee
-- suppose Mandarin Sabe -- he chop, chop, cut head." We were going
too fast, and the night was too dark for us to render the least
assistance, and all, perhaps several families, must have perished. [In
"Letters from a Marine," in The New-England Galaxy and United States
Literary Advertiser (Boston), 18 April 1828, p. 2, via ProQuest.]

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Their China custom, which amounts to law, requiring the ship to depart
and carry them away, chop, chop (immediately). [Edmund Fanning,
_Voyages Round the World_, Ch. XIII, Transactions at Macoa and Canton,
p. 255, New York: Collins & Hannay, 1833,
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Voyages_round_the_world_with_sketches_of/HCJhAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22chop+chop%22&pg=PA255&printsec=frontcover]

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