South Korean films and TV series have in the last few years rapidly swept across the cultural scenes of Asia, Europe and the US. South Korean culture has become so popular that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) last month added 26 Korean words to its latest edition.
According to reporting by CNN, the term “K-pop” was added to the OED’s corpus in 2016 following two decades of South Korean idol groups and pop music taking the world by storm and garnering millions of fans in the process.
In addition to pop music, South Korean film and TV drama has built a global presence, including last year’s multi-award-winning smash hit Parasite and the recently-released Squid Game, which is set to become Netflix’s biggest-ever show. The word “K-drama” was one of the Korean words added to last month’s OED update.
Photo courtesy of Netflix 照片：網飛提供
Also included in last month’s update was hallyu, which means “Korean wave” and refers to the global phenomenon of South Korean culture sweeping the globe. The popularity of South Korean popular culture has driven interest in South Korean tourism and food culture. Accordingly, new additions to the OED corpus include banchan (small side dishes of vegetables served as part of a larger meal) and bulgogi (Korean-style barbecued beef). Other additions include hanbok (traditional Korean clothing), aegyo (coquettish behavior considered adorable in Korean culture) and mukbang (a self-made video of someone eating food while talking to the camera). Some existing English words that have taken on a new meaning through South Korean culture have also been included in the dictionary’s update, such as “fighting,” which has been adapted by South Koreans as an encouragement to others, similar in meaning to“keep going” or “go for it.”
A statement released by the OED said: “We are all riding the crest of the Korean wave, and this can be felt not only in film, music, or fashion, but also in our language, as evidenced by some of the words and phrases of Korean origin included in the latest update of the Oxford English Dictionary.” The statement continued: “The adoption and development of these Korean words in English also demonstrate how lexical innovation is no longer confined to the traditional centers of English in the United Kingdom and the United States.”(Liberty Times, translated by Edward Jones)
韓國影視產業近年以風馳電掣，先後橫掃亞洲和歐美文化圈，流行的程度就連牛津英語辭典都在九月的詞目更新中，增加了二十六個韓式英文單字。
Photo: AP 照片：美聯社
《CNN》報導，南韓過去二十年以大量偶像團體和流行歌曲風靡全球數百萬粉絲，「K-pop」一字也在二○一六年被收錄進牛津字典中。
除了流行音樂外，南韓電影和戲劇也走上全球舞台，包括去年橫掃各大影展獎項的《寄生上流》，以及近日爆紅，有望成為網飛（Netflix）最受歡迎影集的《魷魚遊戲》等，「K-drama」也被列為此次的牛津新字。
牛津字典的新一波更新中，加入了描述南韓風潮的用語「韓流」（hallyu）一詞。文化流行也帶動了該國的觀光和飲食文化，包括「飯饌」（韓式小菜，banchan）、「韓式烤牛肉」（bulgogi）等，以及「韓服」（hanbok）、「撒嬌」（aegyo）和「吃播」（mukbang），另外有一些是由韓國文化賦予新意的現存單字，像是「fighting」被用於鼓勵和加油。
牛津字典聲明寫道，「我們都馳騁在南韓浪潮的浪尖上，且不只是在電影、音樂和流行文化上，還包含了語言，從我們最新一次更新中看見的韓式單字和片語可見一斑」、「韓式英文的發展和採用也證明了一件事，那就是詞彙的創造不再侷限於美國和英國兩大傳統英語中心。」
（自由時報）
Street lights are often taken for granted until a power outage plunges the world into darkness. When that happens, the value of these lighting installations becomes evident as the world turns into a more dangerous place for pedestrians and motorists alike. The Chinese could claim to be the first to have constructed a crude type of street light. Around 500 BC, residents of Beijing employed a type of street lamp that used hollow bamboo pipes and natural gas vents to create burning torches. Later, ancient Romans adopted lamps fueled by vegetable oil, which relied on slaves to light and
A: Who else is on Billboard’s list: “The 25 greatest pop stars of the 21st Century?” B: No. 15 to 6 are: Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Usher, Adele, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Britney Spears. A: I can’t believe that Adele’s only at No. 10. B: No. 5 to 1 are: Lady Gaga, Drake, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Beyonce. A: Well, they surely deserve the honor. A: 《告示牌》雜誌的「21世紀最偉大的25位流行歌手」，還有誰上榜啊？ B: 第15至6名是：麥莉希拉、大賈斯汀、妮姬米娜、阿姆、亞瑟小子、愛黛兒、亞莉安娜、小賈斯汀、肯伊威斯特、小甜甜布蘭妮。 A: 真不敢相信愛黛兒只排第10名。 B: 第5至1名是：女神卡卡、德瑞克、蕾哈娜、泰勒絲、碧昂絲。 A: 這幾位真是實至名歸！ （By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩）
Undersea cables are conductors wrapped in insulating materials and laid on the seabed. Their main functions are telecommunications or power transmission. The core of the undersea cables used for Internet signals is optical fiber, using light to transmit Internet signals. Taiwan’s communications are currently handled by 10 domestic undersea cables and 14 international undersea cables. About 99 percent of Taiwan’s Internet bandwidth relies on undersea cables, making them Taiwan’s “digital lifeline.” The demands on the cables’ bandwidth are only set to increase with the development of artificial intelligence (AI), which relies on the data fed into it. Today, data is
Spoiler alert and shift blame 破梗&甩鍋 在新冠疫情期間，無論是因為封城 (lockdown) 還是居家隔離 (self-isolation at home)，人們關在家中使用網路的時間大增。這也讓一些原本只存在於網路論壇的用語廣為普及。我們來談一下破梗 (spoiler alert) 與甩鍋 (shift blame) 這兩個用語。 有位古典文學教授 Joel Christensen 針對領導統御與疫情控制寫了一篇以古喻今、相當深入的文章：“Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales”，文中出現一些講法，可用來翻譯上述的流行語： In the 5th century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins Oedipus Tyrannos with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.) (Joel Christensen, “Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales,” The Conversation, March 12, 2020) 作者提到 Oedipus（伊底帕斯）想找出瘟疫何以降臨他的城邦的緣由，加了一句：Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.（破梗：領導無方）。Spoiler alert 就是「破梗」，如果用在有人洩漏電影劇情的情境中，也可以翻作「小心爆雷」或「劇透警告」。疫情之下，在家看影集、電影成了很多人的娛樂，但要小心劇透 (spoilers)，很多 YouTube 上的影評在開頭也都會說 Spoiler alert!，警告還沒看過電影的觀眾小心爆雷、劇透。 至於「甩鍋」，源自大陸網民用語，通常意指某人犯了錯之後想推卸責任、轉移焦點、甚至讓別人背黑鍋的做法。疫情爆發後，相關網路資訊量爆增，許多中國網民也想找人為這場疫情負責，紛紛呼籲地方政府首長、地方黨書記不要「甩鍋」。 其實，在古代文學《奧德賽》中，就有「將自己的責任怪罪眾神」的說法，試用時下流行的「甩鍋」來重新翻譯： Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering, but they experience
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