ENG1010 English for Effective Communication

Why Hongkongers should ‘add oil’ when it comes to English

A look at the process and significance of landing a place in the world’s most
authoritative record for the English language

Ernest Kao
OCT 17, 2018

“Add oil” has been made an official term in the Oxford English Dictionary
Give a possible synonym?
(OED). It follows a long list of other Cantonese terms and phrases to have
___________________________
entered the mainstream “Hong Kong English” lexicon and later wriggled
_________________________
into the world’s most authoritative record for the English language. What does this refer to?
_________________________
5 But why is a dictionary entry such a big deal? How does the process work?
Answer these questions after
And what does it tell us about Hong Kong English and its place in the
finish reading.
global family of English varieties?

“Add oil” – what does it mean?

It represents the metaphor of injecting fuel into a tank, or alternatively,
stepping on an accelerator to propel a vehicle forward. But the use of “add
10 oil” as an expression of encouragement is a creation of Cantonese: ga yao, The paragraph is about:
or jiayou in Mandarin. Often accompanied by exclamation marks, it is a ___________________________
versatile phrase Chinese speakers use to express encouragement, ___________________________
incitement or support, somewhere along the lines of “keep it up” or “good
luck”. It is believed to have originated as a cheer at the Macau Grand Prix Guess the meaning:

15 during the 1960s. ___________________________

___________________________

Then how and where are the words selected from?

Dictionary words are analysed and extracted – often by software – from a
What is the tool used to select
corpus, a database of texts of written or spoken language that provide
words for dictionaries?
evidence of how English words are used in everyday situations, sometimes
___________________________
spanning centuries, all over the world. Examples include the publisher’s
_______________________
20 own Oxford English Corpus, which contains 10 billion documented words,
Guess the meaning:
the international Bank of English and the Corpus of Contemporary
___________________________
American English. Based on this research, professional lexicographers
___________________________
write the actual dictionary entry.

How does a word get into the OED?

According to Oxford University Press, a word must require sufficient
25 independent examples of use over a “reasonable amount of time” to be
considered for inclusion. The publishers also consider whether the word
 ENG1010 English for Effective Communication Criteria for a word to enter
has reached a “level of general currency”, that is, understood by readers dictionary?
without the need of an explanation of its meaning. The OED’s entry of ___________________________
“add oil” cites a 2005 Post article on Macau as one of the earliest printed ___________________________
30 evidence of its general use. The process of adding words can be long and
Guess the meaning:
painstaking. “[It] depends on the accumulation of a large body of
___________________________
published (preferably printed) citations showing the word in actual use
___________________________
over a period of at least 10 years,” according to the publisher.
Guess what is in this section?
So what does this mean for “add oil”? ___________________________
That the entry has been included in the OED may make people feel its use ___________________________
35 is more legitimate but according to Wee Lian-hee, professor of language
What does this refer to?
studies at Baptist University’s English department, this is not a dictionary’s
___________________________
job. “A dictionary just records that the word is there,” he said. “The
___________________________
authority and legitimacy of language comes from its users.” However, once
a word enters the OED, it is never removed.

40 Dr Jon Orman, honorary assistant professor at the University of Hong

Kong’s school of English, said dictionaries have always been ideological
and commercially driven projects.
What does this refer to?
“They are never just the innocent descriptive projects many lexicographers ___________________________
would like to believe,” he said. ___________________________

45 “The ideology which is most in vogue currently is one of diversity and What does this mean?

inclusion, hence the appearance of all manner of increasingly exotic ___________________________

vocabulary items in the OED unknown to the vast majority of English ___________________________

speakers.” ___________________________
(hint: Find connective)

What other Cantonese words have entered the OED?

Over the years, many “Hong Kong English” terms have been immortalised:
50 “char siu” (barbecued pork), “compensated dating” (companionship and
sometimes sex, for cash), “lucky money” (also known as lai see),
“sandwich class” (middle-class dwellers too poor to buy property in the
Give a possible synonym:
private market, but not poor enough to qualify for subsidised flats), “milk
___________________________
tea”, “wet market” and “sitting-out area”, to name a few.
___________________________

What does it tell us about language?

55 That Hong Kong Cantonese features scores of English loan words is not
new. But many scholars agree there is no real “English language” either.
The roots of English are Germanic, mixed with Celtic, Latin and Norman.
 ENG1010 English for Effective Communication
“English was never a pure language and whether it’s the English of What does this mean?
Chaucer or Shakespeare, it has always included words from many ___________________________
60 sources,” Wee said. And that includes Cantonese, which is spoken by about ___________________________
71 million people around the world.
Guess the meaning:
Popular Cantonese loan words to the anglophone world include “ketchup” ___________________________
and the word “chop” – as in company chop (stamp) – for example. Other ___________________________
English words that come from Hong Kong English include “nullah” and
65 “shroff”, which have Anglo-Indian roots, though they are only used in a
few English-speaking places. “What such developments of course bring
clearly to light is the myth that there is any such thing as the ‘English
language’,” Orman said.

Guess the meaning:

So what is the big deal?
___________________________
Just as Singaporeans have embraced “Singlish”, Hongkongers are equally
___________________________
70 thrilled that Hong Kong English is gaining recognition. “OED is
recognising the legitimacy of our English and its potential to be relevant to
the anglophone world, more than it is creating legitimacy,” Wee said.
Positive / Negative:

“As Hongkongers, we would be short-changing ourselves if we continued Short-changing: ______________

to be myopic about using our English. We can certainly reach out and Myopic: ____________________
75 communicate with the world without having to give up on being
ourselves.”

Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/2169018/add-oil-entry-oxford-english-dictionary-just-latest-cantonese

Words that occur all the time in this text:

ENG1010 English for Effective Communication
Before you read:
1. Take a guess about what you will learn from this article.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Be prepared to do the following as you read:
a. Highlight unfamiliar words
b. Underline referencing words (e.g. this, that, it, they, we, which, that)
c. Write down synonyms next to newly-learned words

Understanding the article:

1. What is “add oil” used for?
________________________________________________________________________
✓ Bonus: What is the possible meaning of versatile (line 12)?
Versatile describes something which has ___________________ uses.
2. Why is a dictionary entry for “add oil” such a big deal?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. How do lexicographers decide what words to include in the OED?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Reflection:
1. What are some possible words that might enter OED in the future?
2. Is Cantonese a “pure language” (line 58)? Why?
________________________________________________________________________
3. With regard to “…the myth that there is any such thing as the ‘English language’…” (lines
67-68), what do you think Orman mean?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. “The authority and legitimacy of language comes from its users.” (lines 37-38) What does
Professor Wee mean?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5. How do we make Hong Kong English legitimate?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. With “add oil” added to OED, should we encourage students to use it in their writing or
speaking? Why or why not?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________