호호. The last time I updated the Korean slang category was in ….. *whispers* December hahaha D: I’m back again though! Today I’ll be introducing a few slangs that is related to Twitter! I suppose I don’t have to explain what is Twitter.. right? If you are not following me, please follow! @hangukdrama I complain and whine a lot there, so if you don’t want any of that, don’t follow me ㅋㅋ
1. 맞팔
Meaning: Follow each other (서로 팔로우하는 것)
Not sure if there’s an equivalent word for the same concept in English. Can’t think of anything offhand except “Follow me back?”. 맞팔 is an abbreviation where the morpheme 맞 means “마주 (together, each other, facing)”.
You see this morpheme used in words like 맞앉다 (마주 앉다) – sit facing each other and 맞부딪다 – hit each other. It may be harder to guess the meaning of 팔 at first, but it’s actually an abbreviation of 팔로우 (follow). Due to Korean not having an “f” sound, f-words (haha) are romanized with ㅍ. Like 파일 (file).
Like I said earlier, I can’t really think of an equivalent word for English but it’s common in Korean to use it as a verb and a noun. eg. xx랑 맞팔됐어!!! can be used if you and xx are following each other. That’s the noun usage. As a verb you can say something like 맞팔하세요! and I think I have seen it used it some profiles when the person will follow you back if you follow him/her.
Personally I’m not into the whole 맞팔 thing. I am thankful if you follow me but I don’t like people asking me to follow them back.
2. 알튀
Quite straightforward. This means RT or 리트윗 (in more proper romanization form).
3. 트통령
Meaning: person (on Twitter) who has a large follower count and influence The above 2 slangs are quite common knowledge (if you are a Twitter user) but this one is less known. 트통령 is a play on the word 대통령 (President), replacing the 대 with 트 (트위터).
ㅎㅎ If you are on Twitter, is there any 트통령 that you want to be 맞팔 with? 😀
7 Comments
Vanessa
7 May, 2013 at 11:58 PMHahaha thanks for the post! I like the way you explain it, it makes me actually learn/memorize 😀
The 알튀 I wouldn’t be able to figure it out by myself easily because, to me, T has a “티” sound more than a “튀”, but, well, English is not my first language, so maybe the 한글lization is proper xD
Now this 트통령 is a very funny and smart play hahahah
hangukdrama
9 May, 2013 at 10:44 AMT does have a 티 sound, but I guess in this case they are trying going for the Tw(eet) kinda sound ><;
Van
8 May, 2013 at 12:11 AMI don’t use use twitter much besides just talking to you 😛 But I do appreciate it when I want to browse sites in Korean with confidence! Thanks for the slang ^^
I think in the last sentence, it’s better to say “by” instead of “with”? Or maybe I’m wrong? I’m not a grammar nazi though haha. But I would like to be followed by Hangukdrama 😛 since she has not done so, even though I don’t really post anything hahaha
hangukdrama
9 May, 2013 at 10:45 AMㅋㅋㅋ followed you! 😀
Reyna
8 May, 2013 at 8:33 AMAlways looking forward to these kind of interesting post! You don’t get to find a textbook talking about this slang. and it is definitely useful when conversing with friends on it! Thanks so much for the post!
hangukdrama
9 May, 2013 at 10:45 AMthanks for reading! 😀
Richard
29 January, 2017 at 2:21 PMThanks for posting about these!
I’ve been in Korea for a while now but anything not on naver dictionary is a mystery to me.