Opinin: Occasional difficulty in getting the correct spellings of loan words

While reading an opinion in one of the national dailies two weeks ago, I encountered the sentences: “The gang-ho policies of liberal hawks” and “Adopting a gang-ho posture”. My interest in the two sentences is the word ‘gang-ho’, which does not exist in the English language.

It was easy for the writer and whoever edited the opinion to miss the correct word, ‘gung-ho’, because of the similarity in pronunciation of the two words.

‘Gang’ is an English word that refers to an organised group of criminals or a group of troublesome young people who spend a lot of time together planning mischief. ‘Ho’, on the other hand is the short form of ‘whore’; female prostitute. This description did not fit the opinion writer's narration.

The writer was making reference to ‘over-zealousness’ and the act of being ‘over enthusiastic’ thus, ‘gung-ho’, which means exactly that. Gung-ho, widely used as part of the English vocabulary, has its origin in Chinese, as are many other words that we often use without considering their origins.

Etymology, the study of the origin and history of words and their meanings is not only complex, it has not been a major concern for the majority who simply use English as a medium of communication.

No language borrows words from other major languages across the globe more than the English language. Whether German, Spanish, Arabic, French, Chinese or Kiswahili, quite a number of words from these languages have found permanent positions in the English dictionary.

DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Sometimes the words are just ‘cognates’ - words in different languages that have similar, or almost similar spellings and pronunciations, and also mean the same thing.

For instance, the words ‘banana’ and ‘capital’ mean the same thing in both Portuguese and English. The German word ‘haus’ and the English word ‘house’ are cognates.

Words that are borrowed from other languages and incorporated into a new language in their original form are known as ‘loan words’. Such words include those taken from Kiswahili - our national language - like ‘panga’ and ‘safari’.

Many more exist from other languages - ‘rendezvous’, ‘deja vu’, ‘angst’ and ‘gung-ho.’

Those among us enamoured of French fries no doubt know about ‘ketchup’ (tomato sauce).

Words of Chinese origin in the English language include kow tow (subservience) - derived from the Cantonese word ‘kau tau’ - which means high respect; coolie (labourer), cheongsam (derived from cheuhngsaam, a straight, close-fitting silk dress with a high neck and slit skirt), typhoon and rickshaw. Tea is a variation of the Chinese word ‘te’.

From Germany, where the English language originated, it has borrowed words like 'abseil’ (the act of descending by rope), ‘kaput’ (ruined, broken) and fest (celebration).

From the French language, words like critique, bourgeois and chic among many others, have found their permanent places in the English dictionary.

Not to be left behind is Arabic from which words like almanac, assassin, candy and coffee derive. Fiesta (party), macho (masculine) and plaza (public square) are English words borrowed from Spanish.

SPANISH INFLUENCE

The Spanish language had a lot of influence in the naming of states in the United States of America.

Names like Arizona (meaning little spring), Colorado (red-coloured), Florida (flowery), Montana (mountain), Utah (taken from the indigenous Ute people) and Santa Cruz (holy cross) derive from Spanish.

Finally, from the same national daily last week, an editorial bore the words ‘Tillerson’s visit should jerk up ties with the US’.

According to the English dictionary, to ‘jerk’ is to move, or to make something move with a sudden sharp movement. For example, ‘While John and his wife were arguing about a short message text that he had read on her phone, she jerked the phone away from him."

When you make matters difficult for someone, you are said to be ‘jerking that person around’. To convey what the writer intended in the editorial, ‘jack’ would have been more appropriate.

A jack is a device used to lift heavy things off the ground. Jacks are more often than not associated with vehicles, used to lift them off the ground to make changing flat tyres easier.

Mr Tillerson’s (now former US Secretary of State) visit, it was hoped, would lift ties (jack up relations) between the US and Kenya to a higher pedestal.