Caveat: 스님

스님 (seunim) means Buddhist monk.  It’s an honorific form of address used in talking to monks, too.
Over the weekend, I cut my hair.  When I cut my hair, I tend to get it very short, because I’m lazy and by cutting it super short that makes it possible to avoid a haircut for a long time, afterward.  So my hair has become very short – military “basic training” style.
Most of my students noticed the haircut.  They would say, “Teacher!  Hair?”  or the less linguistically confident would just  point at their heads and say “머리?” (meori = head or hairstyle).
One student, who goes by the English name of Angelina, came up to me very gravely as my afterschool class was starting.  The tiny 3rd grader put her palms together and bowed.  “스님,” she said.  It was a very clever joke, and funny.  Even though my hair really wasn’t short enough to be a monk.

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