Sunday, August 16, 2020

assaulted peanuts

This is funny if you read Korean:


The Korean lettering says, "Aw-ssol-tee-deuh pee-nawt-cheuh," which is supposed to mean "assorted peanuts" in this context, but which instead sounds like "assaulted peanuts." Such are the deficiencies of hangeul, the 24-letter alphabet used in both North and South Korea. Hangeul has no letter that replicates the American English rhotic "R," so it has to make do with the letter "lieul," which looks like an electronic number 2 on a calculator: "ㄹ." The sounds that can be made with this letter are the Spanish "R," which is flapped off the tip of the tongue, and something like the English "L" (when doubled up by appearing at the end of one syllable and the beginning of the next).

Perhaps a better hangeulization might have been: "어쏘티드 피너츠" (which avoids the "R" issue entirely: "aw-ssoh-tee-deuh") or "어쏘르티드 피너츠," which at least faces the issue of the "R" and gives us "aw-ssoh-reuh-tee-deuh."

Maybe I should buy a big-ass bottle of peanuts so they don't end up being assaulted.



1 comment:

John Mac said...

I'm quite sure you have every intention of assaulting those nuts.