A question

[Kenneth N. Ehrensal]

Well, I put "mee-gook" into the Google search engine and came up with the
following link
 http://newswatch.sfsu.edu/guide/m.html
which is at San Fran. State U. and it seems to confirm what your student
said.

Ken
**************************************************************
America Works Best When We Say, "Union YES!"
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Ken Ehrensal
Associate Professor
Management Department
Kutztown University
(610) 683.4599
ehrensal at kutztown.edu
http://www.kutztown.edu/~ehrensal
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bambi Schieffelin" <bs4 at nyu.edu>
To: <linganth at ats.rochester.edu>
Sent: Thursday, 04 October, 2001 11:18 AM
Subject: A question


> One of my students heard the following, and was wondering if any of it was
> true - any ideas or is this a language myth?
>
> Gook, a racial slur for Koreans comes from the Korean word for "America".
> Supposedly, when the troops landed in Korean during the Korean war, they
> heard local people saying "mee-gook" (America/USA) and assumed they were
> speaking English.
>
>
> Thanks - Bambi
>
>