Not the best name for a product that many people think tastes like slime. Dunkin Donuts also has a new product named "Slimmy Bavarian."
Dunkin Donuts is a repeat offender.
Can we just declare a ten-year moratorium on English here? Maybe we can convince VANK that it's distorting Korean culture, or something. Why use faux-English words at the expense of Korean ones that make pefectly good sense? Make better sense, actually, because not only do they actually mean something, they're understood by Koreans.
11 comments:
//Can we just declare a ten-year moratorium on English here?//
Sure thing. English is a terrible language for non-English speakers because of its complexity and lots of exception.
//Why use faux-English words at the expense of Korean ones that make pefectly good sense?//
I will complain many English speakers who still butcher Hindi, Korean and Russian loanwords. Everything goes more than one way.
Language is perceived by the listeners of the society. You'll find "over-fetish-ization" of English language all over the world, not just in South Korea.
I think the "over-fetish-ization" is worse here than in other countries.
I've got plenty of examples from my Korean government office proofreading job if you'd like to see them.
When I see such overused favorites as "hub", "ubiquitous", and "green growth", I just tune out. English is not being used as a means to communicate, but rather as an attempt to give Korea some global cache.
Spouting buzzwords does not make a country a global force.
Maybe I've already been here too long, but that "Slimmy Bavarian" looks pretty damn tasty.
On the other hand, "Mek-shim Mek-shim Eye-suh-du Ko-pee" has become a catch-phrase joke song in our house this summer.
Oh, and don't look now, Brian, but your favorite K-Pop group, Kara, has a great new song, Wanna, that does NOT mangle our Uri Mal. Our girls are growing up.
Yeah, Whitey, each time I see a PR video for something here I just tune out because it's just buzzwords that don't mean anything. Why go through all the trouble to make something that makes sense to neither Koreans nor English-speakers?
//I think the "over-fetish-ization" is worse here than in other countries.//
I've seen worse in Japan than in South Korea. Mostly because of over-relying the katakana script with an aversion against Kanji (Chinese characters), Japan experiences somewhat worse than South Korea.
//Why go through all the trouble to make something that makes sense to neither Koreans nor English-speakers?//
Because it's a buzzword? You'll see a lot of non-sense English words since it has become the prestigious language for the modern pop cultures around the world. When you see a modern language that becomes very popular, it will become degenerated no matter what.
There are also English-based pidgins and creoles in the Americas, Africa, and Asia that are as prestigious and important as "mainstream" English. English is important everywhere; including "bastardized" forms like pidgins and creoles.
Of course, English is meant to be imperfect by non-native speakers.
A mere wanderer, as a linguistics student I must correct the idea that pidgins and creoles are "bastardized" forms of a language. The use of the word bastardized gives an impression that these forms of communication are illegitimate, when they certainly are not."Pidgin is a contact language when groups of people who speak different languages try to communicate with one another on a regular basis." "A creole is a pidgin language that becomes the native language of a group being used for all or many of their daily communicative needs". So a creole is actually a full-fledged language with complex structure apart from its base languages.
What is going on here in Korea with this disgusting misuse of the English language is not for the purpose of communication. It's for "looky looky, I am clever."
If you want to call something bastardized, Korean misuse of English fits the bill. (Konglish might be a different story.)
I said "bastardized" because how Brian express harsh-sounding comments in his entry.
I'm also in linguistics, by the way.
//If you want to call something bastardized, Korean misuse of English fits the bill.//
I've seen worse in Japan than in Korea. Korea's quite decent.
I didn't use "bastardize" in this post, but I've used it often in others.
"Korea's quite decent." HA! HA HA HA!
Look, there's a difference between how the Korean language conditions Koreans to adapt English to suit their needs and abilities, and the absolute Engrish garbage that pollutes nearly every pop song, ad, piece of fashion, sign, notebook, and, well, basically anywhere else you find English in Korea. Any time I find a piece of English in Korea that DOESN'T have a mistake I'm absolutely floored.
Sure, some people say it's not cool to make fun of bad English in Korea, and I can agree a little. It's unbecoming of teachers to constantly point out mistakes. However, I don't laugh at my students. I do laugh at people who insist on using ridiculous English in their songs, on their clothes, and on their advertisements, people who spend large sums of money on an ad campaign but don't even care about the language being used. As an English-speaker there's nothing wrong with taking an interest in how my language is used, and as a teacher it's appropriate to note the awful English students encounter every day and how that influences my job.
I don't think it's too much to ask why Koreans---yes, and Japanese---insist on using a language all the time that they don't understand, as an actual native English-speaker I don't think it's wrong to be bothered by it, and as a teacher I don't think it's wrong to make a connection between how English is presented in Korea and how the students view it in the classroom.
//I don't think it's too much to ask why Koreans---yes, and Japanese---insist on using a language all the time that they don't understand//
Funny because I see a lot of Wasians (pop-culturally Asian-wannabes of western origin) butcher Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean in the USA and Canada. Yeah, somewhat ironic or not.
Okay, but that doesn't make our criticisms here any less valid. Though the impression of proficiency in these languages would be important for entertainers, these Asian languages are not the object of a nationwide obsession and "fever."
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