I recently learned an outstanding phrase in Korean that caused me to realize as a language Korean has a lot of odd words and phrases that use animal words, yet have nothing to do with the afore mentioned animal. Here are some of the most awesome.
새우잠 (shrimp sleep) - sleeping in the fetal position. This expression makes some sense due to the fact that a shrimp, like a fetus, is all curled up.
술고래 (alcohol whale) - a drunk. I guess the guy is like a whale that lives in alcohol.
고래고래 소리 (whale whale sound) - shouting. Um…inspite of their size, aren’t whales fairly quiet? [bonus language note: tack 지르다 on to make it a verb]
출마 / 出馬 (appearing horse) - running for election. Thank god Bush can’t do appearing horse next election term. [bonus language note: add 하다 to make it a verb]
개기름 (dog oil) - the oil found on one’s skin. “Man I need some Oxy…I have really dog oily skin.”
개꿈 (dog dream) - a meaningless dream. Who are they to say that a dog’s dreams are meaningless. The dream that dog had in Disney’s Cinderella seemed pretty meaningful!
개소리 (dog sound) - stupid talk. Well dog’s are pretty stupid, so this one kind of makes sense. [add 하다 to make a verb of this]
공부벌레 / 工夫벌레 (study worm) - a nerd. Not that different from the English expression, “book worm”
So there are some of my favorite animal based expressions having nothing to do with animals. If you know any others feel free to leave a comment.
