"Add oil" is now English

Two years ago, I wrote a post about the Chinese expression "'Add oil'" (9/13/16) (cf. the comments to "Non-translation" [7/24/16]). In that post, I mentioned:

I remember way back when I was in high school (in the 50s), the cheerleaders used to tell their team to "step on the gas".  So the concept of ga1yau4 / jiāyóu 加油 ("add oil / gas") was already out there.

In a personal note, Chau Wu adds:

To echo what you said, I remember I also used the phrase 加油 when I was in elementary school (late 1940s – early 50s), both in Mandarin and Taiwanese.

Now we learn that the literal English translation of the Chinese expression has been accepted by the Oxford English Dictionary:

"Add oil: Encouraging Chinese phrase enters English dictionary" (BBC [10/18/18])

"Jia you" is a Mandarin Chinese expression used in cheers at sporting events and rallies or to encourage someone. In Cantonese, it's "ga yau".

Now the English translation – "add oil" – has been recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary.

See also this article in Chinese on Liberty Times Net.

The "Grand Prix in 1960s Macau" theory of earliest usage mentioned in the video of the BBC piece, which accepts the same "etymology" as did the SCMP article I cited in my original post, may be a little off in dating the origin, since Chau was using it more than a decade ahead of that time.

In the final analysis, perhaps we should view "add oil" < ga1yau4 / jiāyóu 加油 ("add oil / gas") < "step on the gas" as a round trip word, for which see:  "East Asian Round-Trip Words", Sino-Platonic Papers, 34 (October, 1992).