Origin Of The Term Gung-Ho

The term “gung-ho,” interpreted as meaning “work together,” comes from Mandarin Chinese, gōng hé, which was used as a motto by the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society.
The term has only been used in American English since World War II when United States Marine Corps Lt. Col. Evans F. Carlson adopted it in 1941 as the motto for his meetings in which problems were discussed and worked out. As Carlson explained in a 1943 Life magazine interview, “I 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.”
The motto caught on among his elite battalion, the famous “Carlson’s Raiders,” who began calling themselves the “Gung-Ho Battalion.” By late 1942, gung-ho was widely adopted throughout the Marine Corps as an expression of spirit and “can do” attitude. From there, eager individuals began to be referred to as “gung-ho” and the term went viral.
Other words and expressions that entered the American English language during World War II include flak, gizmo, task force, black market, and hit the sack.