English Words and Phrases with Chinese Origins Quiz

Answer: ketchup

In the 17th century, the Chinese community in northern Vietnam concocted "kôe-chiap" (literally "salmon juice"), a mixture of pickled fish and spices. When it entered the English language around 1711, it originally referred to fish sauce; then it became applied to all kinds of gravies and sauces. "Apicius Redivivus; or, the Cook's Oracle" by William Kitchiner (London, 1817), spends seven pages on various recipes for catsup (his spelling) made from walnut, oyster, cockles, tomatoes etc. Around 1800 in the United States, tomato ketchup emerged and ultimately become the favorite, and then the only ketchup. Ultimately, the spelling "catsup" lost to "ketchup" in the United States.

Answer: gung-ho

"Gung-ho" was the motto and the battle cry of the legendary Carlson's Raiders, the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion led by Lt. Col. Evans Carlson (1896-1947). His command during World War II is considered unconventional and innovative, and his elite Marines would scout out Japanese bases in the Pacific Ocean and conduct amphibious attacks from behind enemy lines.

The word "gung-ho" comes from the Chinese "gōnghé" (or "kung ho" in Wade-Giles spelling), which means "to work together, to cooperate". Carson first heard the word from a friend named Rewi Alley, a New Zealand writer who had become a member of the Communist Party of China in the 1930s. Alley was instrumental in establishing Chinese industrial Cooperatives (CICs) to promote grassroots industrial development, and Lt. Carlson said in an interview in "Life" magazine that he "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."

Answer: brainwash

"Brainwash" comes from a literal translation of the Mandarin Chinese "xǐ nǎo", a term and psychological concept invented by the People's Volunteer Army, the armed forces deployed by China during the Korean War. It's a forcible indoctrination to make someone give up deeply held beliefs and attitudes and substitute new ones.

It entered the English lexicon after Western newspapers and radios utilized the term to describe the mental and emotional state of many POWs returning from the Korean War.

Answer: shogun

The full title in Japanese was Seii Taishōgun or "sei-i-tai shogun" meaning "barbarian-subduing chief". Eventually it was shortened to "shogun". Much as the Greeks substituted "bar-bar-bar" for the sound of non-Greeks (barbarians), the Japanese term came from a sound-substitution for Chinese "chiang chiin", literally "lead army."

The term "shogunate" didn't appear until 1871, as a hybrid of Japanese shogun and the Latinate suffix "-ate".

Answer: typhoon

A typhoon is an often violent tropical cyclone that develops in the western Pacific Ocean or in the Indian ocean. The word "typhoon" entered the English language in the 16th century. Some etymologists contend that it comes from the Chinese, or more specifically Cantonese, expression "tai fung", meaning "great wind".

Some say the original English word came from the Hindi "tufan", but subsequent pronunciation came from contact with the Chinese, so English "tuffon" became "typhoon". It is possible that any or all of these words (and perhaps the spelling at least of the English word) were influenced by the Greek "typhōn", meaning "whirlwind", personified as a sort of wind-monster in mythology.

Answer: tycoon

For a long time, Japan had almost completely closed itself to trade with the West. In 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry sailed into a harbor near Tokyo and presented a letter from President Millard Filmore demanding that Japan begin trading with the USA. Now Perry though he was giving this letter to emissaries of the emperor. In reality, they represented the shogun, whom the emissaries called "taikun", a title meaning "great lord or prince", which the Japanese had borrowed from Middle Chinese "tnaj" ("great") and "kiun" or "kyn" ("lord"). (These are also the sources of Mandarin "dà" and "jūn" for "great prince").

Perry returned to the USA with accounts of a "tycoon", which became adopted in American English by 1857. John Hay and other Cabinet members took up the word "tycoon" as a nickname for President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. After World War I, the word was transferred to wealthy and powerful businessmen like J.P. Morgan, who may well have wielded more power than lords or princes or presidents.

Answer: kaolin

I grew up thinking that kaolin was as Georgian as peaches and pecans, and while some 8 million metric tons are mined from Georgia each year, this soft white clay is named after Gaoling (or Kao-Ling), a town in the Jiangxi Province of southeast China where it was mined for centuries. Kaolin is an essential ingredient in china and porcelain, not to mention in paint pigments and in coating paper products. Kaolinite, the mineral extracted from kaolin rock, was once an active ingredient in the over-the-counter medication Kaopectate, a remedy for diarrhea and dyspepsia, but it was replaced by the adsorbent clay attapulgite in the 1980s and then with bismuth after the FDA banned that as well.

Answer: chin-chin

In France, Italy, and sometimes Britain and the USA, you might have heard "chin-chin" as people raise their glasses. The Mandarin phrase from which it originates, "qing qing", was historically used for drinking rituals, but one will rarely hear it in China in the 21st century.

It's actually a bit dated in English-speaking countries, too, though you are more likely to hear it among Brits and Americans of Italian descent (and they might spell it the Italian way, "cin-cin"). It arrived in Europe when missionaries, merchants, and explorers returning from Asia shared some of the customs they had picked up in their Eastern travels. "Qing qing" means "please please".

Answer: no can do

There have been claims circulating on the Internet (with little evidence) that this phrase entered the lexicon in the early 20th century as a mean-spirited jab against Chinese immigrants who spoke English as a second language. But actually, it is a straightforward translation of the Mandarin "bù néng zùo", "no can do", and it is a rather good example of Eastern influence on a Western language. "Long time no see" is another one subject to the same misconception, though in fact it is disputed whether the phrase comes from Mandarin Chinese or from a Native American language! Both expressions have grown so widespread now that they are recognized as part of American culture.

The pop duo Hall and Oates took the song "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" to the top of the U.S. Billboard chart in January 1983, bumping Olivia Newton-John's long-standing hit "Let's Get Physical".

Answer: paper tiger

A paper tiger could be a person, a nation, or an institution that makes itself appear threatening or powerful, when it is actually ineffectual or powerless. "Paper tiger" translates the Chinese "zhilaohu' or "tsuh lao fu", and it is an ancient Chinese expression. John Francis Davis, a British diplomat and sinologist, first translated the phrase as early as 1836.

The phrase became well-known to the West, however, from its use by Mao Zedung, leader of the People's Republic of China. In a 1946 interview with American journalist Anna Louise Strong, he said that "all reactionaries are paper tigers".

In 1956 (again with Strong), he used the phrase to describe the United States. Part of its staying power for Westerners, perhaps, is that both paper (invented by the Chinese) and tigers are associated with China.