Friday, July 15, 2022

weird Korean terms

In Korean, a stapler is called a Hotchkiss, and a cast (on your arm or leg) is called a Gibbs. A little research shows that an EH Hotchkiss brand stapler was shipped in large quantities to Japan long ago, so the Japanese started calling staplers Hotchkisses. This undoubtedly floated over to Korea, where many foreign words first arrived via Japan. As for Gibbs, this may come from German, where Gips means "plaster," related to the English word gypsum. (This, too, came to Korea via Japan.) Originally, powdered gypsum was mixed with water, and strips of cloth were dipped into the mixture to make casts. These days, casts are made of fiberglass. I broke my wrist when I was eight, and while it was cool having the plaster cast on at first, the thing rapidly became stinky and itchy, and when it was time to have the cast removed, I couldn't wait to get the damn thing off my arm.



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