#58. 미만잡 -- You don't reach my standards

There are many ways to entertain yourself in the Korean internet scene. You could, for example, engage in the hobby of 어그로 끌기 (usually by saying something controversial and enraging many people at once, which is not unlike trolling), you could produce a lot of funny 드립s to bask in the glory of your witticisms, or you could play a little game of 낚시 to spread false information and see who falls for it.

Here's one other way to be annoying on the Korean internet without bringing on a full-scale keyboard war. Suppose that you found someone who was bragging about her achievements. She is talking about how she is a student of 연세대학교 (Yonsei University, often regarded as one of the top schools in Korea), how her relatives gave her a new iPhone for her birthday, how people say that she looks like a well-known k-pop girl group member, and she is going on and on.

While you don't feel that you have the energy to get into a fight with her, you want to annoy her a tiny bit. So as she is writing things about herself, you start adding these little comments to her writing. When she writes that she goes to Yonsei University, you comment:

대학은 서울대 미만잡.

The word "미만잡" comes from two Korean words. The first part, "미만" means "less than." For example, the inequality "2 < 5" is translated to "5는 2 미만이다." It also gets used in sentences such as "You will not be offered admission if your score is less than 70," which is translated to Korean as "70점 미만의 점수로는 입학허가가 나지 않습니다." The second word, "잡," has been written about before. It comes from the word "잡종" which means "mutt." Korea used to have a caste system, and people belonging to the lowest caste were often called "잡것" (mutt thing). So the word "잡" carries a very negative connotation and is insulting when you hear it.

This means that the word "미만잡" signifies something along the lines of "anything less than a given standard is a mutt thing (i.e. useless and irrelevant)." Therefore, by the above quote, you are saying that "no matter what university you go to, unless you go to Seoul University, you are nothing more than a mutt thing."

In this case, it's more humorous than anything, since everyone knows that Yonsei University is actually a great school. But by saying the above phrase, you are just being annoying, and slightly insulting the girl for not having made it into Seoul University (Seoul University is almost certainly more elite than Yonsei University in the Korean system.)

You can continue to annoy her, by saying the following things too. When she brags about her new iPhone gift, you can say:

선물은 현금 미만잡. (Any gift less than cash is irrelevant)

When she talks about her beautiful face, you can tell her:

얼굴은 김태희 미만잡. (Any face less than Kim Tae Hee's face is irrelevant)

This is 김태희, often considered the most beautiful actress by many Koreans.

 While you are obviously setting a very high standard and no one is expected to meet all of them, if you keep saying things along these lines, you are sure to be annoying! By the way, there is a verb for behaving in this kind of subtle annoying way: you can say that you are "깐족거리다." (For example, the girl that you are annoying might tell you, "깐족거리니까 진짜 짜증나네." -- you are annoying because you are "깐족거리다.")

Of course, there is another context in which you can use the word "미만잡." Suppose that you are a fan of a k-pop group (for convenience, let's just say that we're all fans of IOI.) In order to advocate how great your group is, you could tell everyone:

IOI 미만잡 (Anything less than IOI is irrelevant).

 The difference between the two meanings are always clear depending on the context.

IOI was a girl group produced via a survival program. They were very popular although they disbanded after a year.

 This is of course a slang popular among the younger generation of Korea. As you traverse up in age group, the word "잡" is more and more offensive (because the older generation probably remembers the days of the caste system more clearly). With your friends, you should be able to use this word without offending people (although it depends on what you do with the word!) while I would stay away from using this word with the people of the older generation.

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#54. 성지순례 -- Making an internet pilgrimage

Back when religion occupied a larger part of our lives, many people dreamed of journeys of the spiritual sort, where they travel to the religiously significant places, be it Mecca, Vatican, or Temple Mount. They travel not only to quench their curiosity about the important place where their religion flourished, but they probably thought that their gods were more present in these holy places. I can easily imagine them having a small personal prayer in the hopes that their gods will be more attentive in their mecca.

Mecca

If you think about it, though, it is increasingly becoming the case that the most important aspect of our lives is no longer religion, but rather items of convenience, such as the internet. So, doesn't it make sense that we should try to take our own pilgrimages, and find what is the most sacred and holy in the realm of the internet?

Well, I can tell you that the Koreans have already started. While the word "성지순례" means pilgrimage ("성지" means "holy site" -- "성" is "holy" as in "성서 (bible)," "성인 (saint)", and "지" means "place" as in "지구 (earth)"), it is now also used as a slang term for particularly notable posts on the Korean internet. And you can take your cyber-journey to these sacred places and even make a wish!

What do I mean by notable posts? There are a few different possibilities.

First, this blog is dedicated to the Korean internet slang. They get created somewhere, and in the case where the origin is clear, the posts that created the particular slang can be the 성지 of the internet.

Secondly, and more commonly, there are posts on the internet that predict the future. Often, these posts predict the upcoming celebrity scandals (there will soon be an article on how so-and-so is dating so-and-so). While people rarely believe these things when it first gets posted, sometimes they really do prove to be true!

Thirdly, some keyboard battles are so epic that they get preserved as a 성지. Of course, these are pretty vulgar and it's maybe not the kind of 성지 that you want to visit!

It is quite fun to try to find and visit some of these places. You see the marks of the other pilgrims in the form of 댓글 (comments), like this holy site here.

In the 수능 subreddit of DC Inside (remember that 수능 is the most important test of the life of any Korean!), one user posted the following a few days before the actual test. She asks in the title, "In the written section of the math part of 수능, how many times does 0 appear as an answer?" She then writes in the body that she will "guess 0 for all of them."

Just as a background, while most questions are multiple-choice, there are some questions where the test-takers are required to write in the answer (but not how you arrived at the answer).

Amazingly, in this particular year's 수능, all of the answers in the math section were actually 0. Goosebumps, anyone?

 

 And so this post became a holy site. Even to this day, many internet users flock to this particular post to share their wishes. Here are some of the wishes that the Korean internet users left in the comments:

 Many of them wish for a high score in the 수능 exam (1등급 is the highest), because really, if the god of 수능 existed, that god must live here. But you occasionally also see other wishes such as "please let my crush like me back."

Here is the actual link to the 성지. Make a wish yourself, if you believe in the god of the internet!

While the word "성지 (holy site)" or "성지순례 (pilgrimage)" are clearly Korean internet slang in this context, it has caught on, and media has been seen reporting using this word in the context of slang. If an opportunity arises in real life, you can try using it without offending anyone!

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#49. 정신승리 -- Well, I was right anyway

I really really like getting into arguments. I like respectful debates where I try to change the other person's perspective, and the other person is doing the same to me. I usually come out having learned something, and my opinion also changes more often than you'd expect.

That being said, I cannot stand getting into an argument without any logic. Unfortunately, online debates, on average, have worse quality than in-person debates. The other day, I got into a heated argument online with a conspiracy theorist (call him JU for Jong-Un, because, who else could he be?) about whether North Korea is a utopia or not (Yes, I know, I spend way too much time on the internet -- I swear I'm trying to cut down!)

I provided proof upon proof that there are serious issues with human rights in North Korea, citing statistics and interviews from the North Korean refugees, and photos taken in North Korea. JU basically didn't listen to anything that I said. Every time I try to show him a concrete fact, he would flatly tell me that there was no proof that they weren't fabricated. What was I to judge North Korea, without any proof that these "facts" were real?

Okay, I guess he might have a point. But more likely than not, he is just so caught up in his own world that no amount of proof can penetrate his mental defense. In other words, JU is invincible, thanks to his mentality.

I won't lie, the whole time, I was telling myself:

와, 저사람 정신승리 정말 대단하다. (His mind victory is incredible.)

The word "정신승리" literally means "mind (정신) victory (승리)." Because in his own world (inside his mind, or 정신), JU is truly invincible and thus will be the victor every time (승리). It's an extreme form of rationalization.

We see a milder kinds of people who achieve 정신승리 every day by making lame excuses. When someone loses in a video game, she might say:

랙걸려서 진거야. 원래는 내가 너보다 잘해 (I only lost because my internet connection was lagging. If it weren't for that, I'm better than you.)

By the way, notice that when the internet connection is lagging, the Koreans use the verb "걸리다" to say "랙 걸리다/랙이 걸리다." Anyway, you know that you're definitely better than her, so you're thinking to herself (or telling herself outright):

정신승리 하고있네 (You're just giving yourself a mind victory.)

In addition to this, millions of scenarios where someone can achieve 정신승리. They might just curse you out; they might refuse to listen to the content of your argument, instead focusing on grammatical and small discrepancies of your arguments, basically stagnating the debate; or loudly declare you to be the 어그로꾼 and 낚시꾼 (the suffix -꾼 denotes the person who is carrying out the act of 어그로 or 낚시); or they might even walk away from the argument entirely, accusing you to be incapable of carrying on a debate, when in reality, they are the ones who can't distinguish facts from blind beliefs.

For some reason, the Korean internet seems to have a surprising number of 정신승리 happening every day. When you spot them, be sure to call them out! The other users will appreciate the 사이다.

To finish, of course the word is sarcastic. You should only use it when you're picking fights (of course you shouldn't fight! But in the land of the Korean internet, sometimes it is just inevitable, and at the end of the day, it is all in good fun...)

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#48. 어그로 -- You're provoking it!

It's been a while since I did a post on a Korean slang word that originates from video games, so here is a fun one.

Koreans play a lot of MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). Some of the really popular ones, among many others, include Lineage (리니지 in Korean) and World of Warcraft (WoW, or 와우 by pronouncing the abbreviation in Korean).

One feature of these MMORPGs is that each character comes with a bunch of stats. One of these stats is called "aggravation," which measures how belligerent your character is. The higher your aggravation stats are, the likely you are to draw the attention of the non-player characters (such as monsters prowling nearby) and be attacked. So gamers often talk about the "aggro stats." In Korean, "aggro" is pronounced "어그로," not exactly sure why, but this is what stuck.

But Korea, being the unofficial gaming capital of the world, is probably the only country that brought this gaming word into mainstream usage. Even outside of these gaming settings, if a particular user seems to be acting belligerently, or acting in a fashion that would attract fights, the Koreans would say:

저 분 어그로 끄시는듯 (This person seems to be asking to be attacked).

For some reason, the act of provoking others as a verb is "어그로를 끌다." Although it is not entirely clear to me why the correct verb would be "끌다," but my guess is that this comes from another slang of a similar meaning. In an earlier post, I had talked about how certain Korean internet users troll for reaction. In Korean, such an act could be described as "낚시를 하다" or "go fishing."

Nuance-wise, "어그로를 끌다" is more of a large-scale trolling, whereas "낚시를 하다" is more in the scale of a small practical joke. Well, large-scale fishing would be done by casting a net into the sea. In order to get more fish, you would drag the net. "To drag" in Korean is "끌다." So, that's my guess.

The above picture is pretty well-known in the Korean internet circles as an example of "어그로를 끌다." If you read the caption, it is definitely anger-inducing. It shows a segment of the Korean TV news. The title of the article is "월요일이 무서워요... 월요병 해결방법은?" (I am afraid of Mondays... How to cure the Monday sickness).

The solution offered by the news source? "심할 경우 일요일 출근해 잠간 일하면 도움돼" (If the Monday sickness becomes too much, showing up to work for a little while on Sundays helps). And this infuriated a lot of Koreans, especially considering that this is coming from a national news source! Many Koreans watched this news and probably said to themselves:

어그로 한번 제대로 끌었네 (That was a proper display of "aggro").

This word, as it comes from video games, is definitely safe to use with your peers, but likely the elders won't understand it. It's not particularly offensive, although it is definitely vulgar.

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#44. 드립 -- How to compliment a fellow internaut on a post well done

Although I'm no expert in literature, it seems to me that a lot of value is placed on novel expressions (and cliché is, for the most part, hated.) If the Koreans could figure out a way to be a little less vulgar on the internet, the Korean internet could really be a treasure trove for the aspiring writers, and the Korean internet writers would be veritable literary connoisseurs.

From the ancient times, Koreans always have placed a lot of value on humour and satire. If there was a political problem, the literate people would write a fun novel meant to satirize the situation. The common folks would put on a show that makes fun of the higher-up political people. You've probably seen the traditional Korean masks called "탈." The Korean common folks would dance with these masks on in the busy marketplace (which became an artform called "탈춤" or "masked dance") so that people would not know the identity of the brave ones that dared to criticize the powerful people. Koreans believe that by laughing about a problem together, at least there would be moral support for the difficult times that they must endure together.

A masked dance like this possibly originated from making fun of a corrupt Buddhist monk (who is supposed to remain celibate) associating with women -- even with this public display, the identity of the dancers were kept secret thanks to the mask (탈).

The tradition of humour continues to this day, and the internet users of Korea often hopes to come up with a fresh expression that makes people laugh. For example, I have previously written about someone complaining about no meat in his meal.

The opposite word of cliché is probably "ad lib," or "애드립" in Korean, which underlines spontaneity and the novelty. Koreans have shortened this word to "드립" to talk about the new expressions.

As an aside, this shortening makes a lot of sense to the Koreans; remember that most Korean names are three letters, and the first letter is the last name -- for example, "정윤호" is a name of a Korean, whose first name is "윤호" and whose last name is "정." If you wanted to be friendly with this person, you just call them by their first name "윤호." Koreans use this approach to a lot of three-letter words. If you wanted to convey the feeling of vulgarity, you often drop the first letter of a three-letter word and use the latter two letters, if the first letter does not contribute in a major way to the meaning of the word. For example, "아줌마" often gets abbreviated to "줌마" which is a lot more vulgar and familiar in style.

Anyway, "드립" in Korean now applies to an extremely wide variety of internet posts that are spontaneous and funny in nature. It could refer to an entire post that is humorous and unexpected, or it could refer to a single sentence or even just a phrase that brings humour to a situation. For example, here is a post from DC Inside (Korean Reddit) that is considered to be a pretty funny 드립:

The poster spontaneously decided to post about his lunch, as shown in his title "오늘 점심밥" (today's lunch). He then posts a picture of some fries and coke, and writes in the body: "My hamburger got stolen by some elementary school bastard while I went to the counter to get some ketchup."

"초딩" is a standard slang for "elementary school student" (and we also have the words 중딩, 고딩, 대딩, and 직딩, for middle schoolers, high schoolers, university students, and people who work.) "새끼" means a "bastard" and you can pretty much add it to any noun to express your displeasure. For example, if you don't like your teacher, you can say "선생 새끼" or if you just bumped your toe into a table, you can say "테이블 새끼." While it is considered a bad profanity in real life, in most internet communities, it is just another word. Anonymity of the internet does wonders!

"시발" is like "f-ing" and you can pretty much add it to any part of your sentence to convey to the readers that you're upset or angry about something. Any of these would be a valid and natural sentence to a native Korean (I don't understand the grammatical workings, but putting "시발" in any other place would seem unnatural; perhaps you can figure out the rules, in which case, please comment to let me know!):

시발 햄버거는 케찹가지러 카운터 간사이 어떤 초딩새끼가 훔쳐감

햄버거는 시발 케찹가지러 카운터 간사이 어떤 초딩새끼가 훔쳐감

햄버거는 케찹가지러 시발 카운터 간사이 어떤 초딩새끼가 훔쳐감

햄버거는 케찹가지러 카운터 간사이 시발 어떤 초딩새끼가 훔쳐감

햄버거는 케찹가지러 카운터 간사이 어떤 시발 초딩새끼가 훔쳐감

햄버거는 케찹가지러 카운터 간사이 어떤 초딩새끼가 시발 훔쳐감

In any case, the original poster of the above was complimented of his "드립" by the other DC Inside users, for being funny, original, and unexpected. The users might have said things like:

ㅋㅋㅋ 드립보소 (Look at the 드립 of this guy!)

or

드립 죽인다 (the 드립 is so good that it could kill)

There are many words that are born from "드립" which is more or less a root word at this point in the Korean internet, but I will have to deal with those some other time, as this post is already pretty long! However, if you ever wanted to compliment a funny post, try using the word "드립" to refer to the post!

While this word is not offensive in any way, due to the fact that slang is often used within a certain demographic group, you should only use this with your friends, or on the internet.

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#43. 종범 -- Invisible

Baseball is a huge part of the Korean sports scene. In fact, there are multiple internet communities dedicated to the discussion of baseball. The two major ones that I can think of are MLB Park (엠팍 for short in Korean) and 국내야구 갤러리 (야갤 for short in Korean) of DC Inside. In theory, the former is more concerned with the major league baseball, and the latter with the Korean league, but n reality, these distinctions don't really exist. (As an aside, if you're planning to join one of these communities as a way to practice your Korean, I recommend MLB Park, as the 야갤 users have somewhat of a shady reputation, and it is one of the rougher areas of the Korean internet geography...)

Anyway, once upon a time, there was a huge debate on MLB Park pertaining to the best shortstop of the Korean baseball league. The two candidates were 이종범 and 양준혁, both of whom are legendary players. For my own lack of baseball knowledge, I won't get into the stats and try to make my own choice. However, the one thing that I can say for sure is that 이종범 had more enthusiastic fans.

While their stats were more or less similar to each other, the fans of 이종범 asserted that he was superior to 양준혁 because "he had something more not quantifiable in numbers."

This probably makes sense to his fans, but to the outsiders, it's nothing but a laughable claim. It almost seems like the last resort before definitively losing an argument, even. So the non-fans started making fun of this claim. Now, the first name "종범" of this unfortunate baseball player (who didn't do anything wrong other than being one of the two best players of his time!) also means "invisible," or "nonexistent."

Some Koreans decided to honour this unfortunate baseball player with the following photoshopped picture.

For example, if you didn't make the honour roll this semester, your friend might make fun of you by saying:

이번 학기 우등생 명단에서 네 이름은 종범이네 (Your name seems invisible in the honour roll this semester).

Or if your favourite singer releases a new song and it never makes it into the Korean music charts, you might say:

이번 신곡은 차트에서 종범이네 (The newest song seems nonexistent in the charts.)

 The main users of this neologism are men in their teens and early twenties, so there's the usual vulgarity that gets attached to such slang. Furthermore, some Koreans think that this word originated from ilbe (which probably has the worst reputation out of all of the Korean internet communities,) so if you use it nondiscriminately, you might come under fire that you did not intend. So I would use this word with care, and only among your closest friends or in certain internet communities such as ilbe, MLB Park, and 야구갤러리. Yet I still find this word to be entertaining in the uniquely Korean way. Such usage could only be born in a tight-knit community such as Korea!

As a final fun fact, apparently 이종범 himself is aware of this usage. As far as I know, he has not made any official statements about how he feels about it, but some Koreans think that this is disrespectful to the legendary baseball player.

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#40. 호모나 게이득 -- A contradictory society

I find Korea to be a country full of contradictions. One of the things that I find to be the most strange is its attitude towards the same-sex relationships.

Just like in any country, the younger people tend to be more open about the same-sex relationships, although many elder people will openly speak out against it. In any case, the Koreans tend to be a lot more conservative about it as a whole. Misinformation and prejudice is definitely present, and most non-heterosexual people stay closeted, so to speak. I suppose a part of the reason is that the men are expected to complete a mandatory military service, where you share the same room and shower together in an open space, and if you reveal that you are gay, you could be ostracized, although I don't think this is the entire reason.

A good Korean friend of mine, who completed her high school education in Korea and moved to North America, still finds the idea of same-sex relationship difficult, in that while she is fine with most such relationships, she is uncertain how she would react if her (hypothetical) children turned out to be not heterosexuals. She admits that her attitude is because of her upbringing in Korea, where "fitting in" is always emphasized more than your individuality.

So I am always confused when Koreans go wild over manhwa (Korean version of anime) scenes depicting romance between two male characters (of course, they're also into romance between two female characters, but I want to talk about the male relationships in this post.) I really have no explanation for why they are so open towards same-sex relationships in anime (in Korean, they're often called BL for Boy Love or GL for Girl Love), but have such difficulty translating this into real-life stuff.

There's a particular phrase that the Koreans use to cheer on BL, especially when it was unexpected, which I find to be hilarious (albeit confusing, given their usual attitude!) When a manhwa scene shows a sweet romance between two male characters, the commenters often scream

호모나 게이득!

I find this phrase to be so clever, because it is a classic example of double entendre (or, double sens dans le vrai français -- desolée, Francophone readers!) When you read the phrase out loud, it sounds very similar to "어머나 개이득!" which is precisely what it is trying to say. "어머나" is just an exclamation of surprise (because a conservative Korean doesn't expect to see BL in most places) and "개이득" is a vulgar exaggeration of the word "이득" which means "gain" or "windfall." So the phrase "어머나 개이득" means "wow, what a f-ing lucky day!"

However, the phrase also has a second meaning. The reason why "어머나" was substituted for "호모나" is because "호모" is short for "homosexual" in Korean. Similarly, "게이득" has been substituted for "개이득" because "게이" is how Koreans write the word "gay."

To sum up, this phrase reflects the Koreans' joy at seeing a romantic scene between two men. Really?!!

Unfortunately, it is really used exclusively online. First of all, because of the similarity in its pronunciation to "어머나 개이득," people wouldn't necessarily get it when you say it out loud. Secondly, Korea is not yet so liberal that these kinds of comments are appropriate in public (nor will you see a ton of such displays of affection.) You don't really comment on how awesome it is too see public displays of affection anyway!

In any case, I find it encouraging that Korea is still progressing, and they're keeping their humour sharp!

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#39. 발암 -- It's killing me!

Here's an expression that I'm not a huge fan of, but it is used widely as of a couple of years ago.

There's some degree of belief among the Koreans (although not nearly as widespread as fan death, I think!) that stress causes cancer. FYI, it seems that there's no real evidence that stress causes cancer at the moment.

Anyway, if you frequent the Korean internet, you will undoubtedly see a lot of stress-inducing users. Some of them are so blinded by their own convictions that they refuse to have a conversation, preferring to more or less resort to circular logic and using the technique of 도배 to get through their points. Some of them are so foul-mouthed (even by Korean standards!) that you actually cannot stand reading their profanity. You of course see them everywhere on the internet worldwide, but because of the unique Korean internet culture, I always find that the problematic users are more problematic in Korea. At least, while I am very rarely bothered by the anglophone or francophone internet users (the only two other languages that I am confident with) I am often shaking my head at the Korean internet users.

This, of course, happens a lot less frequently in real life, but these people exist nonetheless.

Since some of these experiences are stress-inducing (and downright traumatizing if you're not used to the Korean internet culture,) the Koreans call these people "carcinogenic," or "발암" in Korean. The letter "발" means to "induce," as in "유발 (to cause)" or "시발점 (starting point)." The letter "암," of course, just means "cancer."

The word "발암" is completely standard, featured in Korean dictionaries, and if you wanted to use it in its proper way, you say it in sentences such as:

석면은 발암물질이다. (Asbestos is a carcinogenic material.)

However, in its neologism, it means that you are so angry and frustrated, and that you have that feeling of stuck 고구마 in your chest (probably eventually leading to cancer.) In this usage, Koreans might say:

 보람이는 남의 말은 들으려고 하지도 않아. 걘 정말 발암이야. (Boram never listens to others. She is carcinogenic.)

You could also use it as a prefix, and talk about a "발암 영상" (cancer-inducing video clip, meaning a video clip that makes the viewer angry and frustrated) or "발암 경기" (cancer-inducing game, when your team played so terribly that you nearly died from the frustration).

When I first heard it a couple of years ago, I was so violently against this expression because it felt like such a heartless and uncouth thing to say when so many people are affected by cancer each year. However, this word seems to be used in a fairly lighthearted way, often just substituting the word "frustrating." I am still very much against it and have never used it myself, and perhaps for the same reason, this word seems to be in a rapid decline -- I saw it everywhere a year ago, but not nearly as much nowadays. It's not completely out of fashion yet, however.

For this reason, I would reserve using this word only for conversations with very close friends, or on the internet (where more things are forgivable, for what it's worth.) But in any case, it's a good usage to know, since otherwise the expression probably doesn't make sense as a non-Korean.

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#37. 동공지진 -- Oh, Sh!t

Have you ever had that experience, where you know you screwed up, and you have no idea how to get yourself out of the situation? You're embarrassed, you feel terrible, you want to apologize but you're not sure how things will go from there, and there doesn't seem to be much else that you can do. You're stuck and you know it. And you can't bring yourself to make eye contact with anyone.

So you carefully control your gaze, but of course, that means your gaze just wanders everywhere except that one place every few seconds. Oops.

Koreans have a really cute expression for this situation. They call this state "동공 지진." Here, "동공" means "pupil." "지진" means "earthquake." Namely, your pupils are shaking as if there was an earthquake going on.

While this is not often used in a sentence, and rather as a very short expression like "oh, snap!" you'll see this word a fair bit in TV subtitles (Korean TV usually has subtitles, and they're pretty witty and hilarious!) such as in the following image:

Then you know that the woman in the image got into some trouble that is difficult to get out of. If you wanted to really use it in a sentence, you would use it mostly in internet-style dialogues, such as:

동공지진 보소 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ (look at your eyes shaking lol)

I suppose I find this word to be hilarious because the two words that make up this new expression are fairly scientific words. No one would say "동공" in a regular conversation. They would say "눈동자." And "지진," while used commonly, is still a word you hear in a science class. These two highly scientific words combined in an unusual way to describe a pretty cute situation, and I detect humour from there, as do most other Koreans.

The word is not offensive, but the word seems fairly new, maybe only a couple of years old, and I would restrict the usage to fairly young people, maybe people in their 30s and younger.

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#36. 부심 -- Be proud of who you are (but don't be overly so)

If you have spent any time in Korea, or if you have any friends who identify culturally with Korea, you might have noticed that they are pretty humble about their achievements. This probably stems from the culture of putting the community first before yourself, and it is one of the most intricate aspects of the Korean culture that I cannot explain in a single post. The Koreans react more strongly even to what we call humblebrag (where people pretend to be humble while fishing for compliments), and learning to brag in Korea without turning half of your friends into enemies might take a very, very long time.

Anyway, that doesn't mean the Koreans don't have any self-esteem. In fact, there's a whole family of words related to your self-esteem. The stem of all of these words come from the standard Korean word "자부심." It could be translated as self-pride, but it's a bit more than that in nuance. It's believing that you're in a good place in whatever aspect is being discussed, you're confident because of how you feel about yourself, and so you love yourself a little bit more than the others. For example, when you win a prize in something and you get awarded the prize in front of your entire school during the school assembly (this does happen on a regular basis in Korea), you are probably feeling "자부심." It's not as permanent as self-confidence for most people, although I'm sure that some people live with it all the time.

Sorry for being pretty!

In the word "자부심," the letter "자" has a Chinese origin, meaning "self." For example, "자신" or "자기" both means "oneself.

Anyway, this is not necessarily a negative word. For example, a school principal might tell the students:

여러분은 이 학교의 학생이라는것에 자부심을 가져야 합니다. (You should feel proud that you are students of this school.)

But depending on context, it could have negative meanings, if someone is too confident.

Anyway, if "자" means "self," what should "부심" mean? Well, "자부심" roughly means "self-confidence," "self-love," and all that stuff, so "부심" should mean "confidence," or "love."

Thus another internet slang was born. If a friend of yours, call her 인아, is the class president (in Korean, we call that "반장." The letter "반" means "class" as in "1학년 1반 -- class 1 of grade 1," and "장" means "captain," "leader," etc., as in "대장 (captain)," "장군 (general)," "회장 (CEO or the leader of a company)" and so on,) and say that she is always shoving the fact that she is the class president in your face. Maybe she always orders you around. Maybe she calls you to check that you've done your homework, or maybe she makes you clean the classroom after classes way more often than you should. And she thinks that she's better than everyone because she's the class president.

Then while you talk about her behind her back with your other friends (as you will sooner or later do, if you had a friend like that!) you might say,

인아는 반장부심이 너무 커. (Ina is too confident and proud of the fact that she is the class president.)

Here, the word "반장부심" should mean something like "loving the status of 반장," or "being confident of the fact that she is a 반장." That is, you replace the word "self" by "class president" in the nuance given by "자부심." In creating this new word, not only did the Koreans succeed in accurately conveying the (annoying) characteristic of certain people, they also managed to slip in a bit of snideness into this expression. When someone is using a word of this type, they are definitely being sarcastic and making fun of someone.

 Or if your friend is an athelete ("운동선수," literally a competitor of sports) and always looks down on the less athletic people, you could say:

운동선수부심좀 그만 부려. (Stop being so cocky just because you're an athlete.)

If someone is a wine snob and doesn't let anyone forget it, you could say:

그 애는 와인부심이 너무 심해 (He has too much of a wine snobbery.)

And so on. People really do say it in real life, but be careful of overusing it, as it could really offend someone!

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#35. 월급루팡 -- A very very sweet job

This is a quick post because I am on a vacation! While I was packing for my vacation, I started thinking about how I still get paid from my job during the time that I'm away even though I am not really working, and how my job really is pretty sweet!

That being said, there are sweeter jobs online. Once I read about a software engineer who hired someone else at a lower price than his salary to do all of his work, and basically got free money for years before he was caught (due to security breech). I am sure there are other sweet jobs out there.

Koreans have a very specific word for this situation. For the software engineer above (or maybe even for myself!) they might say,

쟤는 월급루팡이야 (He/she just steals his/her salary.)

So the new word of the day is "월급루팡." You probably already know what "월급" means; it is just standard (and non-slang) Korean for "monthly salary." The interesting word here is "루팡."

"루팡," or Arsène Lupin, is a character in the classic French series who is a gentleman but also a thief. For most Koreans, Lupin is the natural archnemesis of Sherlock Holmes, and the name of Lupin is as well-known as the name of Holmes (but actually, if you read the Arsène Lupin series, he battles Herlock Sholmes, not Sherlock Holmes!)

Anyway, the word "월급루팡" means that the subject of this description is essentially stealing his salary (since they are getting their salary without doing anything!) I find it to be a cute usage, and something that I am doing right now, so I thought I would share this word with you.

As for the appropriateness, it's not particularly offensive, and I'd imagine that a lot of Koreans in their middle ages or younger would get the reference (I'm not sure if my grandma would, though!) It's informal, and although it's a combination of a Korean word and a French word, it doens't give the same level of vulgarity as a Korean+English combination (probably because fewer Koreans are familiar with French, so if you're trying to replace a Korean word by a French word, people can't decide if you're trying to be funny or trying to appear intelligent.) As always, don't use a word like this in a formal report!

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#34. 도배 -- Making sure that you get noticed (and hated, as a bonus)

If you wanted to get noticed in a large online community such as Reddit, what would you do?

I suppose if I were really desperate, I could try submitting the same post over and over again, just to make sure that it gets noticed.

Looks like there's an event going on where the owner of the website is choosing someone at random.

I suppose it works; but it's annoying, and most websites have some rules against repeat submissions. Korea is no exception; most communities have a rule forbidding its users from the act of "도배."

You might have noticed that many Korean houses have patterned walls, instead of simply painted walls. For whatever reasons, Koreans prefer to glue on patterned paper onto the wall. This paper is called "벽지" (where "벽" means "wall," and "지" is Chinese for "paper." You see this letter in "휴지 (toilet paper)," "폐지 (used paper)," "일간지 (daily papers)," etc.) And the act of gluing the 벽지 onto the wall is called "도배."

An example of the walls in a Korean house.

So, when someone keeps posting the same post over and over again, the person is covering the wall (as in the Facebook wall) with a patterned paper (in the form of repeated posts). In other words, he is committing the act of "도배." Other users might tell him,

도배하지 마세요 (don't cover up the wall).

In fact, many online communities have an explicit warning saying:

도배금지 (forbidden to cover up the wall).

Failure to follow this warning usually results in the webmasters blocking your ID (or even IP addresses in extreme cases!) from their websites, so don't do it!

This term is very specific to online activities, so it is naturally not used in real life.

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#32. 기승전 -- Always returning to the same topic

Here's a slightly nonstandard way to tell a compelling short story.

Start by introducing an attention-grabbing scene. For example, a hare makes fun of a tortoise for being slow. Immediately, we are annoyed with the hare, sympathize with the tortoise, and we are emotionally invested. We are setting the stage for the story to rise up to its full potential. In Korean, the Chinese letter "기" means "to rise." For example, "기립" means to "stand up," and "기상" means "to wake up."

You must then continue and develop the scene further, so that there is a story to it. The tortoise challenges the hare to a race. This is a story rather than a description, as it will have a clear ending to it, and it is more interesting than just a scene. In Korean, the Chinese letter "승" means "to continue, to relay." For example, "계승" means "to continue a lineage (for example, a prince becoming the king after his father dies is called 계승)."

An effective technique at this point is to talk about a completely different topic. For example, you describe all the beautiful flowers, feels the soft breeze, and the velvety grass. In Korean, the Chinese letter "전" means "to flip over." The word "반전" means "the event that is completely the opposite of what you might have expected."

Then you finish the story by connecting the two seemingly unrelated stories of "승" and "전." The hare then decides that it is time for a nap, and the tortoise is slow and steady, and wins the race. You get two stories in one, and so your conclusion is twice as powerful. In Korean, we call this "결," as in "결말" or "the end."

While these four letters are almost never used individually, this form of story-telling is called "기승전결." You can also use this for a slightly broader context, where "기승전결" just means "the form of story-telling." For example, you could say:

이 얘기는 기승전결이 너무 뻔하잖아 (this story is too cliché.)

You could also say

그 영화의 기승전결은 정말 신선했다. (that movie's story telling was very fresh/that movie had very fresh story-telling perspectives, etc.)

But then, there are people who never know when to let go of a certain topic. You see this the most often in children, although some adults also do this. Your 3-year-old niece might be obsessed with the latest Disney character, and demand that you buy her the doll at every possible moment.

You're having fun with your niece at the playground, when all of a sudden she runs over to you and ask for the doll. You're eating dinner with your niece, when she starts talking about her dream doll. You're walking down the street with her, when she tells you that you need to buy her that doll. You get the idea.

In Korean internet slang, you might say something like:

내 조카는 요즘 기승전인형이야.

The word "기승전인형" is very similar to "기승전결," but the letter "결" meaning "conclusion" has been replaced by "인형" meaning "doll." This neologism "기승전인형" literally means that no matter how the story is started and developed, the story ends with "인형," or a "doll." This perfectly describes your niece's condition, where she is so obsessed with getting that doll that regardless of the setting, she always returns to that topic.

You can replace "결" with pretty much anything imaginable. For example, for your friend who only cares about getting food, you could tell her that she is such a "기승전밥." For your parents who always pressure you to study, you tell them to stop being "기승전공부."

Aside from the slight sarcasm and the usual incomprehensibility issues for the very elderly who don't regularly go on the internet, you can use this word nearly anywhere informal.

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#31. Five slang words NOT to use if you want to appear cool

I decided to look around the internet for the English writings on the Korean slang today. And honestly, some of the posts that I found made me cringe. Not because they're incorrect, but because the slang that they introduced were so horribly outdated that even my parents wouldn't use them.

Korea is a very small country. There are very few major channels on TV, there are very few major TV series, and because the culture is reasonably homogeneous, everything spreads quickly. If a celebrity makes an appearance on TV and says something catchy, it could be the hot phrase the next day in all of Korea. Although some of these phrases and slang survive for years, some of them are very short-lived.

The following words are more or less dead. Unless you're trying to use them in an ironic way (for example, you are mocking someone for being old-fashioned), it is probably better to avoid the following words, as they are no longer in use.

• 당근: This word means "of course." In Korean, you would normally say "당연하지." Noticing that the first letter of "당연" and "당근" are the same, some people in the 2000s substituted "당근" and started saying "당근이지," or "당근" for "of course." This was very popular for a long time, but it slowly fell out of use, and is no longer used.
• 하이루: The Koreanization of the word "hi" would of course just be "하이." Back in the 90s, if someone greeted you with "하이," apparently you used to say "하이 too," which got shortened as "하이2 (2 = two = too phonetically)" and then "하이투." Sadly, the resolution wasn't the best back then, and the letters "투" and "루" looked very similar. Eventually "하이루" prevailed.
• 방가: This was often used in online chatting, if you wanted to say "nice to meet you," or "long time no see." The proper Korean would have been "반가워" or "반가워요," but since many Koreans pronounce these as "방가워" and "방가워요," this became popular in the 90s. When someone greeted you with "하이루," you always responded with "방가방가."
• 즐: "즐거운 하루 되세요" or "Have an enjoyable day" is a pretty standard formal goodbye. This gets used by salespeople, by automated machines, and also in games as you're logging out. In the mid-2000s, only the first letter of this word was used by the teens (usually in the chatrooms of online games) to wrap up a conversation. Eventually, it started getting used as "get lost," by dismissively typing out only the first letter of the formal goodbye.
• 안습: This word, also popular in the 2000s, is short for "안구에 습기차다." "안구" is a medical term for "eyeball," and "습기차다" means to "fog up" or "become humid." That is, this is a pretty fancy way of saying "I'm tearing up."

This of course makes Korean slang even trickier! The best way to stay on top of the slang game is to consume as much of the Korean culture as possible, so take some time to look around some of the largest internet communities of Korea, such as DC Inside, Today Humor, Ilbe (although this is politically charged and often shunned by many Koreans), Nate Pann, etc.

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#29. 관종 -- Craving attention

In English, we call them "attention whores." In real life, these people are willing to do anything to make sure that they are always in the centre of attention: they fake illnesses, and they scream, cry, and storm out in rage when they're not getting the attention they want. Online, they provoke by making outlandish statements, harass other users, and spread falsehoods.

In Korean, the word "attention" can be translated as "관심." The phrase "giving attention" is translated exactly in Korean as well, as "관심을 주다." You can use them in standard sentences such as

학생들에게 관심을 주면 그들은 더 빨리 발전해요 (If you give attention to the students, they improve more quickly.)

There are other phrases that are direct equivalents of English phrases. For example, "Not paying attention" is written in standard formal Korean as "관심을 주지 않다," simply negating the previous sentence. If the action of not paying attention is deliberate, you would probably use the word "ignore" in English, and "무시하다" in Korean.

If you pin down someone as an attention whore, and decide to no longer pay attention, however, you can say this in two ways in Korean. In a more standard Korean, you would say "더이상 (no longer) 관심을 주지 않다," but you can also say "관심을 끄다." This latter phrase is an informal slang that has been around for a long time, which translates as "turn off your attention."

Moving towards the more recent slang, the attention whores of Korea go by several names, all of which are pretty offensive and are only really good for the internet, or for your worst enemies whom you're looking to pick a fight with. You can call them:

• 관심병자, where you compare the attention-seeking behaviour to an "attention (관심) disease (병)." As "자" means a "person," a "관심병자" is a person who is suffering from the malaise of attention.
• 관심종자. A "종자" is a breed of an animal. Instead of just calling people out on their compulsion to seek attention (which is actually a thing; for example, people suffering from histrionic disorder often engage in attention-seeking behaviour,) this word actually groups all of these attention whores together and label them as a breed of an animal. Needless to say, this word is more derogatory than "관심병자," where you're at least treated like a human being!
• 관종. Koreans really like to shorten compound words, and it is often done by taking the first letter of each of the words that form the compound word. In this case, 관심종자 is made up of two words, "관심" and "종자," so take the first letters from each word to get "관종." This has the effect of making the word even more informal, and somehow it is even more degrading since you can't even be bothered to spell out the whole word.

There are many ways to call out a 관종 on the web. You could call them out directly by saying

관종짓 하지 마라. (Don't engage "하지마라" in the behaviour "짓"  that seeks attention "관종".)

You could also insult them indirectly to the other users online about this troll, and say

관종이 또 한 마리 나타났네 (It seems that another attention whore appeared).

Note the use of the counter "마리," which is never used for counting people (it is only for animals!), but since "관종" compares people to animals, using this counter enables you to insult the attention whore further.

Or you could also use a liberal amount of sarcasm, and say

옛다, 관심 (Here you go, some attention for you).

"옛다" is an old Korean word meaning "here you go" or "voilà/tiens," when an older person is giving something (not very valuable) to a younger person as a favour. For example, if your grandfather were giving you a piece of chocolate, he might say "옛다, 초콜렛 먹어라." But if he were giving you a gold necklace, he probably would not say this.

While it is no longer really used in real life, this word signifies that you are doing them a small favour because they really crave your attention. It further signifies that it is not a huge deal for you to turn your attention to them for a little bit. Since they are usually trying pretty hard to grab all the attention that they can, this phrase belittles all of their efforts, and insults them in a slightly different way (by making them realize how childish they are being, and how you're basically indulging them for a moment.) You see these phrases a lot in internet forums, where a lot of trolls are known to appear.

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#28. 호구 -- The giving tree

I have already talked about how the game of Go (바둑) is nationally loved by the Koreans in a previous post. In case you have never tried playing it, the game works as follows. Two players, one playing black stones and the other white stones, take turns placing one stone each on the game board. The object is to surround as much territory on the game board as possible with your stones. When your stones is surrounded completely by your enemy's stones, they are captured by your enemy.

Here, the black stone in the centre is completely surrounded by white stones, so it will be captured and removed.

There are certain basic formations of stones that everyone should recognize. The following is the most basic formation:

As the white player, you never want to place your stone in position A, because then the black player will surely place her next stone in position B and capture your stone in position A. The position A is a dangerous, forbidden territory for the white player. Every 바둑 player is expected to recognize this formation, and as it is so basic and common-sense, it is even given a name. This formation of stones is called a "호구."

The letter "호" comes from the Chinese letter meaning a "tiger." This is the same letter that appears in the Korean word "호랑이" meaning tiger.

The letter "구" comes from the Chinese letter meaning "mouth." For example, "대구 (cod)" is called this in Korean because a cod has a really big mouth, and "대" means "large." "이목구비" literally means "ear, eye, mouth, and nose," or in other words, the components of your face.

Anyway, the above Go formation is called a "호구" or a "tiger's mouth," because the formation looks a bit like the open mouth of a tiger (if you don't see it, think about Pacman.) Placing your stone inside the open mouth is as dangerous as a tiger's mouth, because you will almost surely lose your stone, just like how you would almost surely lose your hand if you placed it inside a tiger's mouth.

But then, there are those people in life. The kind of people who do stupid things, knowing that they will probably lose out by doing these things. But they do it anyway. You probably know some of those people. The dude who does everything that he can for his girlfriend (who treats him terribly) knowing full well that he will one day get dumped (From the girl's point of view, he is the opposing player who keeps putting stone after stone into the 호구, almost like an open wallet.) That girl who always buys people lunch although no one ever reciprocates.

Nowadays, both online and offline (although it probably originated online), we call these people "호구" (to be completely precise, they shouldn't be called "호구" but rather, the opposing player who places their stones inside the 호구, but sometimes meanings get lost in favour of brevity.) So for that dude who can't seem to stop giving to his terrible girlfriend, you might want to say something like:

그 여자는 널 호구취급해. (She treats you like an open wallet.)

To the girl who buys everyone's lunch all the time, you might say:

니가 호구니? 정신차려. (Wake up, you're not the giving tree.)

Of course, there is some distinction to be made between generosity and being taken advantage of. The word "호구" is only used in this latter case.

Furthermore, since the word comes from 바둑, even the elderly should be able to guess its meaning. So you can try out this word to pretty much any Korean, save for a very formal setting (such as writing a report, or when you're meeting the boss of your boss).

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#27. 죽빵 -- Punch them in the face

I love comic books. These are great to wind down a busy day with, because you don't have to do a lot of work to enjoy them. No need to imagine the scenes in my head, because they're already drawn in. And there is something inherently funny about the onomatopoeia that get used in comic books. I would never say "KAPOW" or "BLAM" or "ZAP" in real life, but I kind of wish that everyone would start using these words more often, because these words are so lively and full of dynamic energy, with a touch of vulgarity.

It turns out that the Koreans are actually better at using these words in real life. Sure, they shouldn't be used in formal settings. But to me, these words add a bit of slapstick spark to our lives when they do get used.

Here are a couple of Korean onomatopoeia that you will see in comic books, or 만화.

First is the word "주욱," which you might recognize better by its variations such as "주우욱," "주우우우욱," "쭉," "쭈욱," etc. This word means to reach out. For example, if a cartoon character was stretching, there might be the word "주욱" written in the background. Since you're reaching out, it sometimes makes sense to write out the longer version of the word such as "주우우우우욱" to describe the length of the stretch and the reach.

This word also gets used in everyday Korean, in contexts such as "주욱 뻗은 길" meaning "the (straight) road that stretches way out," or "쭉 뻗은 나무" meaning "the tall (straight) tree."

The second onomatopoeia doesn't need a lot of explanation; the word is "빵." Although I have just said that "빵" is an adjective for well-inflated objects, there is one other meaning for it. When you hit someone, "빵" is the sound you make.

So when you use these two words together to create a new slang "죽빵," first of all, it is vulgar (not in a profanity type way, but in the comic-book informality), and it means that you are reaching out (죽) to hit (빵). Well, when you reach out to hit, you usually end up punching people squarely in the face. It's slightly entertaining that you can count these things, and the unit of count is "대." So one 죽빵 is "죽빵 한 대," and two 죽빵 is "죽빵 두 대," etc.

When you dish out a 죽빵 to someone.

Remembering that we are using a comic book-style word, so whenever you use it, it's definitely going to be funny. So it's used mostly in an exaggerated way. For example, if your little brother is being annoying, you might threaten him by saying:

나한테 죽빵 한 대 맞고싶어?  (Do you want to get punched in the face?)

 If your friend 준호 accidentally hit you in the face, you might rant to your other friends about how you got beaten up by your friend by saying,

방금 준호가 나한테 죽빵을 날렸어 (준호 flew a 죽빵 at me; 준호 punched me in the face.)

If you got involved in a bar fight, and managed to get in a good one before you got broken up,  you might later brag to your friends by saying:

어제 싸우면서 죽빵 한 대 갈겼어 (I landed a 죽빵 last night in a fight.)

Note that various verbs describe the act of landing a 죽빵. As it was never a proper word to begin with, you can choose the verbs that seems to go well with the context. Even if it were not used previously, if the Koreans agree with you that the verb was appropriate, maybe it'll even catch on! As always, the important thing in Korean internet slang is to experiment, and to be creative.

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#25. 포돌이 -- This wonderful Korean character has no parallel

Once upon a time, the Koreans got tired of the negative public image of the Korean police force. In order to ensure that the Koreans could perceive the police force as friendly and approachable, the Korean police force decided to re-brand themselves by creating a mascot. Below is the culmination of their efforts.

This adorable character's name is 포돌이 (the letter "포" comes from "police," and "돌이" is a suffix to describe an affectionate male nickname. For example, if you have a friend who eats ("먹다") all the time, you call him "먹돌이"; if someone sleeps ("잠자다") all the time, you call him "잠돌이". For women, use the suffix "-순이" instead of "-돌이" to get "포순이," "먹순이," and "잠순이.")  He looked cute, he looked friendly, and it seemed that the re-branding efforts would be a total success.

However, the police officials neglected to take one thing into account.

They forgot that they lived in Korea.

There was no way that the fun-loving Koreans would leave this character alone. First came pictures like below from the (presumably) part-time workers taking a break from masquerading in the 포돌이 costume:

They definitely look approachable, at least if you just need a cigarette.

However, the real boost in the status of the mascot came from a very unlikely place even within the internet culture. Here is a portion of the webtoon that brought 포돌이 to the elevated status that it enjoys today. This webtoon is extracted from a horror series called "공부하기 좋은 날" (A good day for studying). Its episodes often feature a dark motif or a ghost. The artist of this webtoon is renowned for his horrifying images that are sure to haunt you in the dark, especially if you try to sleep too soon after reading one of his episodes. I hesitate to prove my claim with real examples, but here are two connecting episodes that illustrate a typical work of this artist. WARNING: DO NOT CLICK IF YOU ARE NOT INTO HORROR. You will have no trouble understanding the rest of the post even if you do not read these. Here is installment #1, and installment #2.

Here are the summary of each of the episodes to ease the Korean translation. Drag your mouse over the blank space to reveal the spoilers:

Installment #1: A freelancer mother and her son move to a new apartment. The son loves the new apartment, and visits the playground in front of their house daily to play with his new friends. At first the mother does not worry since she can see and hear the playground from their house. but she comes to the realization that she can only hear her son's voice and no one else's.
Installment #2: When the mother looks out, she sees no one in the playground. In a panic, she goes outside to find her son, only to find him in front of their apartment returning to do his homework. When she interrogates him about no one else being in the playground, he says that everyone else left to do their homework too. She tries to see if the playground is cursed, but no one knows anything about it. That night, in her dream, she dreams that her son is going out to the playground to play again. She opens the curtain to see the playground only to see a terrifying figure appear in front of her window and faints. When she realizes that everything was a dream, she breathes a sigh of relief, only to realize that her son was the terrifying figure, and that it was not a dream.

This particular episode seemed like it was no different. A student begins by ranting about the reality of the high school English education in Korea:

The English classes are useless. Exactly what kind of abilities do they hope to measure by an English test?
It is impossible to measure the speaking skills, and one could maybe test whether some words or grammar points are memorized.
That's why one cannot be good at English through the classes provided at school. High school English is merely memorizing words, grammar, and sentences.

I won't succumb to such terrible curriculum. The society wants nothing more than good grades. That is, I just need to do well on the tests!!

By the way, the student's soliloquy aligns quite well with how the Korean students often feel about school subjects. They are not the most effective ways to learn, but as the school grades are so important in the university entrance exam, they have no choice but to follow the curriculum to get good grades. After all, the society cares only about good grades!

So the student decides to sneak into the teachers' office one night, and steal the exam papers in advance.

 

If you are a fan of this particular artist, this is the point where you nearly close your eyes and scroll very slowly, because this is about the point where a very horrifying ghost figure appears. It could be the ghost of a student who killed himself because of bad grades, it could be the ghost of a school caretaker rumoured to be roaming the school grounds punishing the bad students, etc. However...

Well, 포돌이 can be just as terrifying.

Don't cheat, people.

These last two cuts became quite famous in the Korean internet culture, because the irony in these scenes were too great. The contrast of the outrageously cheerful face of 포돌이 against the dark mood, along with the fact that a student is being arrested, was pure hilarity. To this day, these cuts are used over and over again in the internet culture, and 포돌이 became a real celebrity!

I end with one more related word: "철컹철컹." To many Koreans, this word should remind you of 포돌이 (the creepy version, I suppose). This is because "철컹철컹" is an onomatopoeia for the clang of metal, or in our case, the clang of the handcuffs as they close around your wrists. You will see this word appear when an internet user makes not-safe-for-work sexual remarks, especially in the context that might remind people of child pornography. Although the internet users are sending a serious warning towards the target, they are also reminding themselves of the cheerfully creepy face of 포돌이. Some people prefer to use the phrase "잡았다 요놈," or "I got you, you rascal," which is something 포돌이 might say, as he slaps those handcuffs on you. Both words are fairly humorous in nuance, although it is a word definitely reserved for close friends, or for the internet.

All jokes aside, 포돌이 is still the leading face of the Korean police force. As far as the re-branding efforts go, I would say that he is a huge success, as no other mascot has the popularity of 포돌이. And although we will never know what life would have been like without 포돌이, I like to think that he contributed to changing the image of the Korean police force.

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#24. 팩트폭행 -- The truth hurts

Believe it or not, according to the reports of the Korean internet users, the following conversation is said to have taken place in a Korean school during a history class.

Student: It really is too bad that polygamy is no longer a thing.
Teacher: Actually, you should be grateful that polygamy is no longer accepted.
Student: ???
Teacher: If we still practiced polygamy, you would never be able to marry because people like 송중기 will have 100 wives each.

This is 송중기, a very popular Korean actor.

Okay, that hurts, but that's also probably true, and that student definitely got pwned by his teacher, so to speak. His friends probably made fun of him after the history class was over, and they might have said something like:

선생님한테 팩트폭행 당했네 (You got pwned by the teacher bluntly telling you the truth.)

The word "팩트폭행" is made up of two parts, "팩트" and "폭행." The first word is the Koreanization of the English word "fact," and the second word means "assault."

To go a little bit deeper into the nuance of the second word, it is a pretty official word, as if you are charged with the assault of someone, you would be charged with "폭행죄" ("죄" means "sin" or "crime" -- as Christianity came into Korea fairly late, the word "죄" is used for both legal and religious contexts.)

As for the word "폭행," it has Chinese origins. The letter "폭" means violent (for example, "폭풍" means violent winds, or "storm"; "폭식" means to violently eat, or "binge-eat"; "폭행" is a violent "폭"action "행", or "assault.)

Putting these two words together, "팩트폭행" means that you have been violently assaulted by the means of the truth, which is a pretty accurate description of what happened in that history class. You can replace "폭행" with other words that describe violent actions, and get words such as "팩트폭력 (폭력 also means violent assault, but it pertains more to the bullying-type assaults, where one side is decidedly stronger)", "팩트폭격 (a bombardment of facts)," and so on.

Also remember that it is usually the case that when a new word is made by combining an English word and a Korean word (such as in 발퀄, 이불킥, or 프로 불만러) the resulting word is almost always pretty humorous. This is another instance of this claim, so there's definite sense of amusement and humour when you are using this word in a sentence. As usual, this word originated from the internet, and although not inherently offensive, I would play it safe and use this word only with my friends.

Finally, Koreans like to shorten words, especially if it's made up of multiple words. In our case, since "팩트폭행" is made up of two words "팩트" and "폭행," you will often see Koreans shorten this word to "팩폭" by just using the first letter of each word, especially on the internet. Since the Korean slang is very quickly evolving, it is actually not so easy for even a native Korean to guess the meaning of these shortened forms of words without looking them up! But then, it's kind of fun to try and guess what they mean as well.

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