[Inside Chodong]You Want Us to Get On the Starting Metaverse?

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jong-hwa] There are many times when reading article headlines makes me chuckle. I get annoyed when I am deceived by sensational "clickbait" titles or when headlines convey facts incorrectly due to excessive simplification or distortion.

I appreciate the effort to create rhythmic headlines, but when I see titles that come off as forced rather than witty, I feel a mix of cringe and sympathy for my colleagues in the same industry. For example, headlines like "MZ Generation, Get On. Companies Starting the Metaverse Engine" or "Political Circle Boards the Metaverse Bus" fall into this category.

Metaverse is a compound word of Meta, meaning artificial or virtual, and Universe, meaning the real world. It is a three-dimensional virtual space where users’ digital avatars are active. Just because the Korean transliteration ends with 'beoseu' (bus), it has unfortunately been associated with the large public transportation vehicle.

According to a press release from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the National Institute of the Korean Language last month regarding the newly refined terms decided by the National Institute of the Korean Language’s new word committee, the refined term for Metaverse is "expanded virtual world." This is much better.

Speaking of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, I recently received a solemnly titled email saying, "Please help us use easy Korean." The sender was the Ministry’s Korean Language Policy Division. The message was that while it may be unavoidable to use unfamiliar foreign words in reporting, journalists should write articles in easy Korean and Hangul for the benefit of readers who do not understand the meanings well.

Feeling a bit embarrassed and awkward, wondering if there was a big problem with the language I had used in past articles, I asked my fellow reporters, and they said they had also received several similar emails.

According to the Ministry, since January last year, a contracted company has been searching about 12,000 article headlines daily. When foreign words that can be replaced with Korean are found in the titles, they suggest alternative Korean words. They then recommend using the Korean words in the next article. Approximately 360 such recommendation emails are sent daily.

One of the titles targeted for recommendation was "Venture Companies’ Stock Option Issuance Requirements Relaxed, Payment via Capital Gains Tax upon Disposal," with a suggestion to replace "stock option" with "jusik maesu seontaekgwon" (stock purchase option).

How do reporters respond to such emails? A Ministry official said, "Most reporters sympathize." He added, "It is difficult to easily replace foreign words with Korean in short headlines, but reporters try to use Korean in the article body," showing positive changes in awareness and behavior.

Besides Metaverse, the Ministry’s recommended refined terms include pandemic (global outbreak), bimal (droplet), drive-through medical examination (car-based medical service), booster shot (additional vaccination), Corona Red (Corona anger), medi poor (medical poverty class), showroom (experience exhibition room), digital detox (digital distancing), athleisure (daily sportswear), homeconomy (home-based economic activity), owner risk (management-related adverse event), reusable cup (multi-use cup), and many more.

While I do not agree with the exclusive use of Hangul, the rampant use of foreign words and mixed foreign-Korean neologisms by media without much consideration needs improvement. I appreciate the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for pointing this out and offering alternatives.

With new concepts and objects constantly emerging and language changes and dissemination happening at dizzying speed, we must stay alert and strive to write better, easier, and more accurately, preferably in Korean.