3 ms·
(Off-topic rant alert) ...And there are people who just decide they need to (and are qualified to) make new words for new technology, and make a total botch ou
by yongjik 12y ago
(Off-topic rant alert)
...And there are people who just decide they need to (and are qualified to) make new words for new technology, and make a total botch out of it.
Case in point: Some Koreans decided to make "pure Korean" word for website. Nothing wrong with that in itself. But then they looked at "world wide web", and also looked at "homepage", and decided that "world" and "home" patched together makes perfect sense as a website.
So was invented the word nurijip, from "nuri" (an archaic word for "world") and "jip" (house). A Korean website is thus a "world-house". WTF is it supposed to mean?
Makes me twitch every time I hear it.
- viewer5 12y agoHow much do people use that new word, instead of whatever they were using before?
- yongjik 12y agoEverybody around me just says "website" or "homepage", but I've seen nurijip quite frequently in news articles. I guess they're under extra pressure from know-it-all prescriptivists to keep our language "pure". (Well, to be fair, sometimes people do coin a good new "native" word to describe new stuff. Sadly, that's not the case here.)
- tellarin 12y agoThat's why I like to use "espertofone" for "smartphone" in Portuguese. It's a quite literal translation, but has precisely the same meaning. And always cause people to smile when they hear it. :)