WEBVTT

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OK, it's that time
in the reading

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we have a little cultural
language lesson, all right?

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So as far as I'm aware, there
are two words in Cantonese

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that have worked their way
into the English language.

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If you know what they are,
I'll give you a free book.

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Anybody?

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I didn't think so.

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OK, so the first
word is "ketchup,"

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which Cantonese "ketchup"
means tomato sauce, right?

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And I think it crept into our
language in the 19th century

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when the workers came over
to work on the railroads.

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And the other word
is "gung ho," right?

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And "gung ho," to
be enthusiastic--

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"gung ho" literally
means work good.

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I've been working on
the railroad, right?

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So I don't know.

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It's upsetting to me that
these words that have

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crept into our language;
they probably go back

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to this horrible time,
which a lot of our ancestors

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came here for a better life
at slave wages or as slaves.

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And so this is my
"Gung-Ho Villanelle."

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"Yes, sir, we're
going to war on Iraq

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again, straight into
the heart of Baghdad

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to finish off what we
started decades back

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when the price of
crude became a fact

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Dubya and his out-to-pasture
dad can no longer ignore.

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We're going back to
finish what we've started,

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to attack without
provocation, only too

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glad to know God's on our side.

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America, the only
superpower left,

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keeping track of just
what's what, aborted chads,

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but prelude to annihilation in
Iraq, where voices are moot,

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the odds stacked against
stockpiled nukes.

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Who's had enough?

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Who has the courage
to turn back now?

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Or are we cowards,
having grown fat

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on guzzled gas,
Humvees, our latest fad,

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driving us to extinction?

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Democracy's finished when
there's no one left to attack."

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[RINGS BELL]

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