Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nathanrutledge]

For those of you who edit a newspaper at your school, please remember basic spelling rules.

An example would be the word "pine." It only makes the strong "i" sound with the letter "e" at the end, otherwise it makes the soft "i" sound as in "pin."

So, if you work at a school who's name in Korean means "pine tree" please, don't name the newspaper "Pinus." As I work at the middle school of the same name, my coteachers think "Pinus" is a great name for the paper. I don't want to be known for writing the Pinus.

"Oh, Pinus is great! We can make a good Pinus too. This Pinus is too long, make it shorter." UGH!

Thanks

[andrewchon]

Do they say it: 파이나스 or 피너스 ?

[nathanrutledge]

It's an English news paper, so it says "Pinus." I asked my coteachers how to say the word, and they all (Korean speaking and English speaking both) said it how you think they said it.

[CentralCali]

[nathanrutledge]

[andrewchon]

So let me take a gigantic stab in the dark:
they say it 피너스.
They don't do the Latin pronunciation of 파이나스.

Perhaps they are emulating 'Top Gear',
like when they printed 'Penistone Oil' on one of their cars.
When the front door was opened, guess what was readable.

[nathanrutledge]

I've been doing some reading and found an interesting article on spelling rules.

http://www.dyslexia.org/spelling_rules.shtml

Anyway, apparently if you have another vowel directly after the first vowel, OR in a vowel-consonant-vowel combination (as the Pinus does), the first vowel is the hard sound. I thought that only worked with by adding "e."

Well... hmm... my face is red...

BUT STILL! Come on! Pinus? Write it down, show a coworker, see what they say.

[roknroll]

[CentralCali]

Don't sweat it, OP. Imagine yourself at a boys' middle school in a major city in Korea. Now try getting them to say the word peanuts without the entire class snickering. For some things related to the English language here, one is better off just ignoring the issue.

[nathanrutledge]

The thing is, the High School produced the paper, and now we have to follow suit, and my co teachers think "Pinus" is a good name for the paper. I disagree (I hate merging words, although I don't know what Pine has merged with here) and am trying to find a better word to use. So it's not an issue with the kids yet, but I did ask my last class how they would pronounce the word, they all said it "*beep*" and they all laughed, but when pressed, none of them knew what it meant! HA!

[schwa]

"Pinus" is the genus name for pines. I've noticed genus identification on tree & plant signs in lots of parks here so Koreans may be somewhat familiar with those designations. Should be pronounced "pie-nus" but I imagine English speakers mispronounce lots of Latin words too.

Re: them not getting the phallic association. Although Korean has adopted "*beep*" into common use, they pronounce it "pen-ee-suh" with "pen" as in the writing tool. I was surprised to learn that many Koreans, even near-fluent in English, believe that to be how the word is correctly spoken.

[nathanrutledge]

I'm just an idiot. I'm going to go back to Junior High where my idiocy will blend right in...

:::exits adult life, embarrassed:::

[proustme]

Did you tell them about how the word Pinus, especially as pronounced by Koreans, can be confused with male genitalia? I think that's key in getting the point across. Such a name would never be used elsewhere.