Associate Professor Hugo Tseng from Taiwan's Soochow University recently realised that the word "jia you!" was in the Oxford English Dictionary, and wrote an article about it in Hong Kong's Apple Daily.

"Jia you!"

Tseng's column featured a screenshot of  "jia you!" in the OED.

"Jia you!", which literally means "add oil" in Chinese, is defined by OED as "expressing encouragement, incitement, or support: go on! go for it!"

The entry explains its literal meaning as "petrol being injected into an engine", and includes the Mandarin "jia you" and Cantonese "ga yau".

It states that the origin is Hong Kong English.

Words that S'poreans are familiar with

The dictionary is updated on a quarterly basis, and over 1,400 new entries were made in the October 2018 update.

It is unclear when "jia you!" first appeared in the dictionary. However, the OED has been known for including Singlish terms in its previous updates.

For instance, words like "blur" and "sabo king" made it into the dictionary in 2016.

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According to The Straits Times, here are some words already in the OED that many Singaporeans would recognise:

• Ang moh
• Blur
• Char siu
• Chinese helicopter
• Lepak
• Lepaking
• Shiok
• Sabo king
• Sotong
• Wah
• Lah

S'poreans mixed reactions

In response to hearing about "jia you!' in the OED, the reactions from Singaporeans were mixed.

Some expressed excitement that the English language was evolving, but others were a little more concerned:

One netizen, however, had a very legit question:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Top photo adapted from Shutterstock.