给力gěi lì

给力 works as an adjective. A fast phone, a generous boss or a good discount is 给力. The negative, 不给力, is often the more useful word: slow Wi-Fi, a weak team, an app that keeps crashing.

The word itself is older than the meme. Some writers trace it to northern dialects, others to dialects in the south, such as those of Fujian and Hainan. The sources do not agree.

给力 is still everyday Chinese, though it no longer sounds new. 不给力 is common for anything that does not work as well as it should, from a phone signal to a team.

The meme started with a Chinese fan dub of Gag Manga Biyori, a Japanese gag cartoon. In its spoof of the Monkey King’s trip to the west, he reaches the end of the road, finds the place a letdown and complains to his teacher that it is 不给力. Know Your Meme dates the upload of the dub on Youku to May 2010.

The word spread during the 2010 World Cup, and in November people made up the English joke words gelivable and ungelivable. One list of 2010’s top internet words, reposted by China Digital Times, put 给力 first.