용수철 (龍鬚鐵) is the Sino-Korean word for "a metal spring," but the word literally means "dragon (龍) whisker (鬚) metal (鐵)." The character 龍 (용) means "dragon," and 鬚 (수) is the 수 in 수염 (鬚髥), which can mean "beard," "mustache," or "whiskers." And 鐵 (철) means "iron" or "metal."
The reason a metal spring was named "dragon-whisker metal" was that the coiled metal of a spring reminded the Chinese of the whiskers of an oriental dragon. Apparently, if you pulled on the whiskers of an oriental dragon to straighten them and then let go, they would return to their original coiled shape.
The following Korean video explains the origin of the word.
스스로 is an adverb that means "by oneself," "by himself," "by herself," "by yourself," "by themselves," "by itself," "in person," or "on its own," and it is used before the verb and after a noun or pronoun, but many Koreans mistakenly use it as the pronoun.
Today, in Naver's Chinese Character Dictionary, I looked up the phrase 불기자심 (不欺自心), which can translate as "Don't kid yourself" or "Don't deceive yourself," and found the following Korean definition:
스스로의 마음을 속이지 말라는 뜻으로,스스로에게 엄(嚴)하고 정직(正直)하게 자신(自身)과의 약속(約束)을 지키라는 말
Notice that Naver placed the possessive marker 의 after 스스로, forming 스스로의. That means Naver is treating 스스로 as a pronoun meaning "oneself" or "yourself. That is wrong. Instead, the sentence should be written as either [당신] 스스로 마음을 속이지 말라 or 자기 마음을 속이지 말라, which can translate into English as "Don't kid yourself" or "Don't deceive yourself." Also, instead of 스스로에게, it should be 자신에게.
Moreover, the sentence was written backwards, for some reason. In other words, the last part of the sentence should come first.
So, this is how I would rewrite the above Naver definition of 불기자심 (不欺自心) HERE:
자신에게 엄(嚴)하고 정직(正直)하게 약속(約束)을 지키라는 뜻으로 자기 마음을 속이지 말라는 말
"It means 'Don't fool yourself,' meaning one should promise to be strict and honest with oneself."
Koreans seem to be trying to write English-style expressions in Korean, which is resulting in awkward Korean sentences that are harder to understand.
Seeing sentences like the Naver definition above makes me wonder about the future of the Korean language.
The Sino-Korean word 석녀 (石女) refers to a woman who is unable to have babies, but it literally means "stone (石) woman (女)." The pure Korean word is 돌계집, which can also translate as "stone (돌) woman (계집)."
Since the prefix 돌- can also mean "fake," as in 돌팔이 의사 (a quack doctor), 돌계집 can also translate as "a fake (돌) woman (계집)," suggesting that a woman is not a real woman unless she can have babies.
So, if Koreans traditionally believed women were not real women unless they could have babies, then it seems 돌계집 could also be used to refer to transsexual women, who also cannot have babies. Is there a pure Korean word for a transsexual woman?
By the way, the pure Korean word for "dolphin" or "porpoise" is 돌고래, which literally means "fake (돌) whale (고래)."
I have read HERE that the above expression can be used when a host offers food to a guest, though I don't know if it is commonly used these days. For example, if a host were to offer a guest some food and the guest were to politely decline with something like, "No, I'm okay" (아니오. 괜찮아요), which is a common courtesy in Korea, the host could then say, "It's cooked (숙 熟) [and] cannot (불 不) be uncooked (환생 還生)," so we might as well eat it. It literally means "cooked (熟) [and] cannot (不) be returned to (還) [its] raw (生) [state]."
And what does 월월산산 (月月山山) mean? Answer: "[After my] friend (月月) leaves (山山)."
The Chinese character for "friend" is 朋 (붕), which is made up of two "bodies" or "fleshes" 月 (월), and the Chinese character for "to go out" or "leave" is 출 (出) which looks like two "mountains" (山) on top of each other, so the expression 월월산산 (月月山山) means 붕출 (朋出), which means, in this context, "[after my] friend (朋) leaves (出)."
In the linked article above, a wife asks her husband if she should serve dinner while her husband's friend is visiting. The husband replies by saying 월월산산 (月月山山), which means, "No, wait until after my friend leaves." The reason the husband told his wife to wait on serving dinner was that he was embarrassed by their lack of side dishes.
The Chinese character 萬 (만) means "ten thousand," 石 (석) means "stone," and 君 (군) means "king," but 石 can also mean "a straw bag," the kind used to hold rice, and since 君 can also mean "man," the phrase 만석꾼 (萬石君) means "a man with 10,000 bags of rice," which means the man is "a rich man."
My Korean-English dictionary defines 만석꾼 (萬石君) as "a rich man," "a millionaire," and "a person who owns fields yielding 10,000 seong of rice."
From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary
There is also the word 천석꾼 (千石君), which means "a man with 1,000 bags of rice." A 천석꾼 is also "a rich man," but not as rich as a 만석꾼.
The following proverb uses the words 천석꾼 and 만석꾼:
천석꾼에 천 가지 걱정, 만석꾼에 만 가지 걱정
"A man with a thousand bags of rice has a thousand worries; a man with ten thousand bags of rice has ten thousand worries."
The proverb suggests that the more assets you have the more worries you have.
Today I was reading Lee O-deok's (이오덕) book "우리글 바로쓰기" and noticed the following sentence:
"말을 살리는 일이 바로 목숨을 살리는 일임을 모두가 깨달았을 때 비로소 우리는 이 땅에서 당당하게 살아남을 겨레가 될 것이라 생각합니다."
The book is about writing Korean sentences correctly and clearly, but the above sentence is neither correct nor clear. Why? For one thing, 무두 is an adverb, not a pronoun, so he should not have written 모두가, which suggests it is a pronoun. And what does he mean by 모두가? Does he mean "all people," "all Koreans," "all writers"?
If he meant "all people," he should have written either "사람이 모두" or "사람 모두." If he meant "all Koreans," he should have written "우리 나라 사람이 모두," "우리 겨레가 모두," or something similar. If he had meant "all writers," he should have written "작가가 모두," "글 쓰는 사람이 모두," or something similar.
Also, instead of writing 모두가 깨달았을 때 비로소 우리는, he could have just written 우리 모두 깨달았을 때 비로소.
And I would have divided the sentence into two sentences to make its meaning clearer.
Finally, I see no need for 생각합니다 since it is clear that he is giving his opinion.
So here is how I would rewrite the sentence:
"말을 살리는 일이 바로 목숨을 살리는 일입니다. 이 것은 우리가 모두 깨달았을 때 비로소 이 땅에서 당당하게 살아남을 겨레가 될 것입니다."
"Saving language is saving lives. When we all realize this, we will, for the first time, become a people who can live in this land with dignity."
In the book, the author looks at the sentences and writings of others and makes suggestions for improving them, but in the process of doing that he seems to have neglected his own writing. Still, there is a lot of good information and suggestions in the book.
The most commonly used word for "tomato" in Korea seems to be 토마토, which comes from the English word "tomato." The Sino-Korean word for "tomato" is 남만시 (南蠻枾), which literally means "southern (南) barbarian (蠻) persimmon (枾)." The word 남만 (南蠻) was a derogatory term used by the Chinese to refer to people and tribes who lived in the region south of the Yangtze River and beyond. The word 일년감 (一年감) is a mixture of Sino-Korean and pure Korean and literally means "one (一) year (年) persimmon (감)," suggesting that a tomato is a persimmon-like fruit that must be replanted each year, unlike persimmons.
And I have read that Koreans used to refer to tomatoes, and may still do in certain regions, as 땅감, which is a pure Korean word that literally means "ground (땅) persimmon (감)," differentiating tomatoes, which grow close to ground, from persimmons, which grow on branches high above the ground.
Of the four Korean words for "tomato," my favorite is 땅감 (ground persimmon), but probably few Korean these days use the word since the word is not in my dictionary. My least favorite is 토마토, which does not flow off the tongue very easily. I think it would be better if it were pronounced 도마도 instead of 토마토, but I don't get to make up the rules.
The fact that Koreans compared tomatoes to persimmons may help explain why Koreans generally treat tomatoes more as a fruit than as a vegetable. In the United States, for example, we don't usually offer guests tomatoes or a plate of sliced tomatoes to snack on, but in Korea they do.
My Korean-English dictionary defines 아미 (蛾眉) as "eyebrows of a beautiful woman," "arched eyebrows," and "shapely eyebrows," but the word literally means "moth (蛾) eyebrows (眉)" and implies eyebrows like the arched eyebrow-like feelers of a silkworm moth (누에나방).
Women all over the world would probably love to have beautiful eyebrows, but some Korean women, and men, want them so badly that they are willing pay for an eyebrow transplant. I have read in a Korean article HERE that it takes about 100 individual hairs to transplant just one eyebrow of a woman, and about 150 to transplant one of a man. That's a lot of work, so it is probably fairly expensive, but a Korean woman mentioned in the article had it done and claims that it was worth it. Unfortunately, there are no photos with the article, so you will just have to look at the photo of the silkworm moth below and use your imagination. By the way, I counted, and only about 50 individual hairs would be needed to replace one of the silk moth's eyebrows.
Wikipedia says HERE that 국뽕 (國뽕) is a new derogatory term used to refer to Korean ultranationalism. The word is made up of 국 (國), which means "country," and 뽕, which supposedly comes from 히로뽕, and that refers to crystal meth or methylamphetamine. So, 국뽕 suggests "intoxication on nationalism."
The following video shows three "foreigners" trying to explain in Korean what 국뽕 means, and they do a surprisingly good job of it.
In
In the past, when foreigners could speak very little Korean, they tended to repeat many of the nationalistic claims that Koreans made about their country and culture, but as more and more foreigners become more familiar with Korean culture and history and become more fluent in the Korean language, they also become better able to question some of the nationalistic claims of Koreans in general, as the Korean video below talks about. And it seems that the foreigners' opinions are starting to cause some Koreans, themselves, to question their nationalistic tendencies and some of their excessive bragging about their successes, and that seems to result in words like 국뽕 and 팔불출 being used more and more often.
ANSWER:The Eight (八) Not's or Negations (不) appear or come out (出)?
My Korean-English dictionary defines 팔불출 (八不出) as "a dull or stupid fellow" or "a fool," but could it mean "unenlightened," instead?
From Dong-A's Prime Korean-English Dictionary
Koreans seem to use the expression mainly to refer to people who constantly brag about their family members, especially their children, which would get "dull" after a while, I guess. But besides family members, the expression can also be used to refer to people who constantly brag about other things, such as how great their country is, as the following video shows:
But what are the "Eight Not's" (八不) referred to in the expression? I have read HERE that they are the "Eight Negation" aspects or conditions Buddhists need to find "The Middle Way," which is the pathway to enlightenment.
I am not a Buddhist, so I know very little about Buddhism, but from what I understand, Buddhists strive to detach themselves from the world, including family, in their search for enlightenment. If a Buddhist were to brag about his or her family, that would suggest attachment, which would also suggest that the person is still unenlightened, and that could be considered ignorant or stupid, I guess.
Anyway, here are the "Eight Not" (팔불 八불) conditions Buddhists need to find the Middle Way, which is to be on the pathway to Enlightenment.. They are listed in pairs, so four pairs:
Not destroying (불멸 不滅) nor creating (불생 不生)
Not ending (불단 不斷) nor everlasting (불상 不常).
Not the same (불일 不一) nor different (불이 不異).
Not coming (불래 不來) nor going (불거 不去).
So, if one or more of the above "Eight (팔 八) Not's (불 不)," which are not supposed to happen, were to happen or appear (출 出), then that would suggest that one is unenlightened, and that would suggest ignorance, I guess.
Remember! I am not a Buddhist, nor do I know much about Buddhism, so take almost everything I wrote above with a big grain of salt.
ANSWER: It is a Facebook-like social-media site, but without the censorship and commercial intrusion of Facebook.
I will begin posting Korean-language-related topics to "Gerry's Korean Language Notes" on MeWe to make it easier for those who are interested to comment and exchange opinions on the Korean language.
The Korean word for "potato" is 감자, but it comes from the Sino-Korean word 감저 (甘藷), which was used to refer to both "potatoes" and "sweet potatoes." In fact, since the Chinese character 甘 (감) means "sweet" and 藷 (저) can mean either "potato" or "sweet potato," the word 감저 (甘藷) literally means "sweet (甘) potato (藷)." The Sino-Korean words 남감저 (南甘藷 - "southern potato") and 당감저 (唐甘藷 - "Chinese potato") also refer to "sweet potatoes."
In Kim Dong-in's (김동인) short story "감자," written in 1925, there are the following passages:
칠성문 밖 빈민굴의 여인들은 가을이 되면 칠성문 밖에 있는 중국인의 채마 밭에 감자(고구마)며 배추를 도둑질하러, 밤에 바구니를 가지고 간다. 복녀도 감잣개나 잘 도둑질하여 왔다.
In autumn, the women in the slum outside Chilseong Gate would take baskets and go at night to the vegetable garden of a Chinese man, who also lived outside the gate, to steal potatoes (sweet potatoes) and Chinese cabbage. Bongnyo (복녀), too, would often go there to steal potatoes.
어떤 날 밤, 그는 고구마를 한 바구니 잘 도둑질하여가지고, 이젠 돌아오려고 일어설 때에, 그의 뒤에 시꺼먼 그림자가 서서 그를 꽉 붙들었다. 보니, 그것은 그 밭의 주인인 중국인 왕 서방이었었다. 복녀는 말도 못하고 멀찐멀찐 발 아래만 내려다보고 있었다.
One night, as she (Bongnyo) was standing to leave with a basket of sweet potatoes (고구마) she had just stolen, a dark shadow standing behind her grabbed her and held her tightly. She saw that it was Mr. Wang, the Chinese man who owned the field. Bongnyo was speechless and just stared vacantly down at her feet.
The above passages seem to confirm that the title of Kim Dong-in's short story "감자" should be translated into English as "Sweet Potato" or "Sweet Potatoes" since it was sweet potatoes (고구마) that were stolen from the Chinese man's garden. As can be seen HERE, there are others who seem to agree that the title "감자" should be translated as "Sweet Potato."
물 means "water," 똥 means "feces," and 싸움 means "fight," so 물똥싸움 literally means "a watery (물) feces (똥) fight (싸움)," but it translates in English as "a water fight," when people splash water on each other for fun. Here 물똥 refers to "water drops" (물방울).
When children are having a water fight, it is better to use the phrase 물똥싸움 instead of just 물싸움" because 물싸움 can also mean "a fight over water rights," which, for example, can mean the right to use a water supply to irrigate one's rice field. So, to avoid confusion, it is better to use 물똥싸움 to refer to "a fun water fight" and 물싸움 to refer to "an angry water fight."
Actually, 풀 can mean either "grass," "paste," "starch," or "glue," and the 말 in 녹말 (綠末) means "powder," not "horse." I was just being silly.
녹말 (綠末) is a Sino-Korean word that means "starch," and 풀 is the pure Korean word for "starch." An article HERE says that 녹말 comes from 녹두분말 (綠豆粉末), which literally means "green (綠) bean (豆) powder (粉末)." 녹두 (綠豆) refers to "mung beans," which supposedly contain a lot of starch.
Another Sino-Korean word that means "starch" is 전분 (澱粉), which literally means "dreg (澱) powder (粉)," or "the powder of dregs."
My Korea-English dictionary defines 사이비 (似而非) as "pseudo-," "quasi," "sham," and "pretended," but the word is a phrase that literally means "the same (似) but (而) not (非) [the same]." It is an abbreviation of 사시이비 (似是而非), which literally means "like (似) this (是) but (而) not (非) [this]."
ANSWER:Because 보제 sounds too similar to 보지, which is considered to be a vulgar reference to the female sexual organ (vulva).
The Chinese characters 菩提 (보제) are used to represent the sound of the Sanskrit word "Bodhi," which means "awakened" or "enlightenment." Buddhists use the word to refer to spiritual enlightenment. The Chinese pronounce the characters similar to "boti" (보디). Koreans would normally pronounce the characters as 보제, but that would create a problem for Korean Buddhist monks reciting Buddhist scripture because 보제 sounds too similar to 보지, a vulgar reference to the female sexual organ. Koreans, therefore, changed the pronunciation of the word from 보제 to 보리 to avoid the problem. They also changed the pronunciation of other 보제 (菩提)-related words, including 보제수 (菩提樹) and 보제심 (菩提心), which they changed to 보리수 and 보리심, respectively.
They also changed 보제문 (菩提門) to 보리문, which should be translated as "The Gateway to Enlightenment," not as "The Gateway to Excitement."
The word 사람 means "people," and 살이 is a suffix that means "living" or "life," so 사람살이 literally means "lives of people" or "human life." 살이 comes from the verb 살다, which means "to live." But 사람살이 is not in my Korean-English dictionary, which was published in 1998, so it seems to be a fairly new word. I suspect that Koreans created the word as a pure-Korean substitute for the Sino-Korean word 인생 (人生), which also literally means "human (人) life (生)." If it were an older word, wouldn't it be in my dictionary? And what is 인생살이: "human (人) life's (生) life (살이)"? It's not in my dictionary, either.
But here are some -살이 words that are in my dictionary:
감옥살이 - prison life
겨우살이 - (1) winter clothes, (2) passing the winter; (3) a mistletoe
곁방살이 - living in a rented room
고공살이 - the life of a farmhand; the life of a hireling
고생살이 - a hard life
고용살이 - the life of an employee
고을살이 - service as a district headman
남의집살이 - domestic service; living out (as a maid); working as a domestic servant
단가살이 - the house (or life) of a small family
더부살이 - a resident (live-in) servant
드난살이 - live in a family as a servant
막살이 - a rough (haphazard, reckless) life
머슴살이 - serving as a farmhand
벼슬살이 - life as an official; an official career
살림살이 - housekeeping; a household
세상살이 - the way of living; the mode of life
셋방살이 - living in a rented room
시집살이 - married life in the home of the husband's parents
신접살이 - life in a new home; starting housekeeping
여러해살이(풀) - a perennial (plant)
여름살이 - summer clothes
외방살이 - life as a government official out in the provinces
움막살이 - life in a mud hut (dugout)
움집살이 - life in a dugout hut
제살이 - self-support; 제살이하다 earn one's own living
죽살이 - (a matter of) life and death; 죽살이치다 make desperate efforts
The Chinese character 白 (백) means "white," and 壽 (수) can mean either "long life," "longevity," or "age," so together the two characters literally means "white (白) age (壽)," but why does "white age" mean "99 years old"?
Because if you add the Chinese character 一 (일), which means "one," to the top of 白 (백), you get 百 (백), which means "a hundred," and if you substract "one" (一) from "a hundred" (百), you get "99" (白), so 白壽 (백수) means "99 (白) years old (壽)."
ANSWER:A son's (子) branch (枝)? A treasure (寶) pond (池)?
My Korean-English Dictionary defines 자지 as a pure Korean word for "penis," and 보지 as a pure Korean word for "vulva," but I have read HERE that 자지 (子枝) was originally a Sino-Korean word that literally means "a son's (子) branch (枝)," and 보지 (寶池) a Sino-Korean word that literally means "a treasure (寶) pond (池)."
Today, Koreans consider 자지 and 보지 to be vulgar expressions, but "a son's branch" and "a treasure pond" do not sound vulgar to me.
By the way, the following is an expression that some Korean men use to describe themselves as being very busy, though they probably use it only when among close male friends:
오줌 누고 자지 털 새도 없다.
"[So busy that] there is no time to shake off one's penis after peeing."
