"Dung whore"

This is the first in a new series I hope to populate with many funny stories about what my young students say.

One of my favorite little guys has the English name of Adam.  I teach language arts to his class of four-year olds.

He constantly says this phrase 똥구멍 "dong-ku-meong."  I never knew exactly what it meant until a couple days ago.  See, dong, is very close to an English word, "dung."  And as far as I can tell, like "dung" is in English, "dong" is acceptable word for feces.

I've asked a couple Korean teachers what this meant and none could explain exactly what it meant since they were so embarrassed.  Then, Christmas eve, I went out with some people from work.  I asked the Koreans about the phrase.  They were shocked that our little Adam was saying that.  Funny thing is, he says it A LOT.

A conversation with Adam will often consist of, "Dongkumung Joshua, this, donkumeong class, donkumeong candy" you get the idea.

Then, the Korean woman said, "Dongkumeong means Dung Whore!"

Me and the female American teacher started laughing.  We are the two Americans who teach Adam and hear the brunt of donkumeong.  What she had said was funny, but then, we realized what she had meant to say: dunghole!   Even Koreans who are excellent at English will occasionally invert L and R sounds when speaking English.

Dong is of course feces, and "ku-mong" means hole, opening, slit etc.  So, this kid was literally going around saying, "poophole, poophole, poophole."  In practice, it means a**hole.

 

The things kids say....