Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Don't OTL

Konglish is a term used by Koreans for English words that have been adopted into Korean but are words or phrases that native English speakers don't use. While this term may not be the most politically correct term, my students use it, so I'll use it. Such examples are:

eye shopping - instead of window shopping
CC (which means campus couple) - for couples who met at university
skinship - kinda like PDA, public displays of affection
OST - are soundtracks for films (i think it means original soundtrack)
wellbeing - for the healthy, organic trend
deca (pronounced Dee Ka) - digital camera

These are just a few examples of what comes out in class. Another new thing is how texting has changed English. For example lol is now commonly used to express; lot of laughs. Since everyone over the age of 10 has a cell phone in Korea, it is natural that our students teach us new expressions for texting in English. The latest one is, "Don't OTL."

If you look closely enough, OTL looks like a person on their hands and knees and their head down. Essentially it means, dont be sad or cheer up. We thought it was interesting so we thought we would share it with all of you. So here's hoping that you are all not OTL.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

doesn't 'LOL' stand for 'Laugh Out Loud'?