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Sunday, 19 July 2009

Translating the Sublime and the Ridiculous

Still on a North Korean theme, there is now much study in South Korea of the 'insult' rate of the North Koreans towards the Southern President.

"Your All Sirry Idiots ...."

The count is recently claimed by a government official to be more than 1,700 times this year alone. That is an average of 10 insults a day.

These threats and insults range from the simply ridiculous "stooge" or "lackey" to the more terrifying. Last year, for example, it threatened to reduce South Korea "to ashes" and, more recently, warned of a "fire shower" of nuclear retaliation.

However, as this article points out, all may not be as it seems, and a North Korean defector said that "It is a unique aspect of socialist societies in general. People learn to use this kind of strong language, even in everyday life. It is instilled into society. People are too used to it. They learn to read between the lines for the real meaning, and the often repeated words like 'war' don't even register."

That's a relief then ...

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