#981 Have You Ever Been Low? Offensive Place Names, Eunkyung From Korea

Today we're studying this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OdX2k9vDpk

In case you're interested, Eunkyung is speaking a mixture of Korean and Japanese.
I can't speak Korean - knf did the interview in Korean (with a bit of Japanese and English thrown in) - then the subtitles arrived in English via Japanese :)
What do you think? Any mistakes?

I apologize if anyone is offended by today's Stick News pictures.

I'll explain my thinking behind it, just in case. I generally avoid saying "the N word" in videos because I know it is so offensive in the US. (Usually I would freely say it in a discussion about language for example). But I thought writing it in this context would be OK.

According to Wikipedia there used to be many official place names which included the N word. One of these was a place called "Dead Nigger Creek". Apparently, even after the name changes, some local people still called the locations by their previous names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger#Names_of_places

The picture was about the fact that what is considered acceptable language is constantly changing and about people's willingness or ability to change with the times.
Older people sometimes use offensive language because they either resist change, or out of habit. In this picture the old woman is innocently saying a place name (out of habit because that's what she called it for so many years and perhaps she's lost her mind a bit so she's forgotten the name has changed) and the young boy is completely shocked that she would say that or that there　was ever a place with that name.

I think it's interesting how language changes so much - some words that we use freely now will no doubt be considered horribly offensive in future.


English script:
http://thedailyenglishshow.blogspot.com/2009/02/981-have-you-ever-been-low-of...

英文スクリプト＋日本語訳＋番組詳細
http://tdes.blog120.fc2.com/blog-entry-534.html

Español
http://tdesespanol.blogspot.com/2009/02/981-alguna-vez-has-estado-deprimido.html

Show 981 Friday 27 February
The Daily English Show
http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Low
• Kelly
• Clarkson
• Niseko
• Eunkyung
• Korea
• Taejon
• ESL
• EFL
• ELT

[politescarlett]

she said she will stay until march in korean but the substitle, it writtien "by april"........

[thedailyenglishshow]

Thanks for telling me :) I was going to put a note over it after skippyXG pointed it out above, but forgot. I've just put a note there now.

[skippyXG]

The Korean scripts are excellent. Well done!

Perhaps I would have written "until March, for three months" instead of "Until April, three months in total."

And "Today, the snow's a bit heavier than before" instead of "The snow's a bit heavier than usual"

But these are really subtle differences and it's almost impossible to say which translation is more accurate.

[thedailyenglishshow]

Yeah, I was thinking she must have said March because I knew she was going back in March. Thanks for pointing that out :)

[fenandcarol]

when u speak english. i can understand easily.. i like when u teaching

[gebbletook]

I'm not sure if I understand the purpose of these videos. Is it to help ESL classes? I'm assuming it is more of a "This is the proper way to pronounce things" type learning aid because it would require the students to already have a strong command of the language.

[wowJhil]

Lol, good joke! And nice mix of Jap/Kor!

[wowJhil]

Lol, what is there to be offended by? And surely it's just whites anyway being offended on behalf of others anyway.

[falujah]

yes I know :)

[thedailyenglishshow]

OK, thanks for tell me. I'm sorry if I offended anyone and I just explained my thinking behind it in the video description (so I could include a link).