Caveat: 똥 묻은 개가 겨 묻은 개 나무란다


똥   묻은            개가      겨    묻은           개  나무란다

poop bury-PASTPART dog-SUBJ chaff bury-PASTPART dog rebuke-PRES
The dog that buries chaff rebukes the dog that buries poop.
This is one of those “pot calling the kettle black” proverbs. Basically, it means “don’t be a hypocrite.”
It’s notable perhaps because of the appearance of that all-purpose word 똥 [ttong], a favorite of fifth-grade boys, which can translate as everything from manure to poop to shit to dung. It’s not really a bad word in Korean, though obviously it’s not high discourse. But it creates problems when kids look in the dictionaries and find “shit” and use it freely in translation, because that’s not as acceptable as using 똥 in Korean.

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