Made in Korea
It’s no surprise that English has appropriated some of its words from Korean. Other English words didn’t come from Korea at all, but managed to come through Korea. Here are a few.
Tae kwon do came to English in 1967. It’s made up of three words from the Korean language: tae =kick + kwon = fist + do = art, way or method.
Kimchi, a spicy, pickled, vegetable mixture, appeared in English in 1898 from Korean.
Skosh is a Japanese word meaning few, little, or some. American forces introduced skosh to English during & after serving in the Korean War.
American forces during the Korean War also gave us the precipitous retreat meaning of the word bug — let’s bug outta here!
Though the word chopper (one who chops) has been a part of the English language since 1550, it was members of the American military during the Korean War who began using chopper to refer to a helicopter.
In Chinese, xi nao means attempt to alter the thoughts of another through psychological techniques. American military members during the Korean War directly translated this Chinese figure of speech to English, giving us the word brainwash.
Though it would be reasonable to assume the Korean word mani (a large number of people or things) might be the root of the English word many (a large number of people or things), these words developed separately from one another & have no etymological relationship at all.
Funny how these things never quite get into the news feed regarding Korea, eh?
My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, & Wordnik.
I did not know that "skosh" and "bug" out came from Korean! Great little factoids to trot out at parties. And isn't that weird about mani/many!
ReplyDeleteHi Anne -- Thanks for coming by. Like you, I was gobsmacked by skosh. For years I've made the completely unsubstantiated assumption (such is the way of assumptions) that skosh was Yiddish. Wrong!
Delete:-)
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