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Eye of The Argus
What Is “Being Common”?
ByParkKun-ha
EditorialConsultant
W
hat is “common knowledge?” According to Oxford Languages, it is “something known by most
people.”Ifso,doyouthinkyouareoneofthemostcommonpeople?Whatdoyouthinkthecategory
of“commonknowledge”is?DidyouknowthatEnglandisanisland?Canyoutellmetheyearofthe
WorldWar,ColdWar,ortheKoreanWar?Canyounametheplanetsofthesolarsysteminorder?Doyouknowthe
“official”EnglishlanguageofKorea?ToKoreanreaders,canyouwriteyournameinChinesecharacters?
Above all, I started to doubt whether I really was a common person. Recently, the controversy over declining
literacy, called the “sim-sim-han apology debate,” has heated up online in Korea. The incident started when a cafe
in Seoul, which held a webtoon writer's signing event, used the expression “sim-sim-han apology” in an apology
statement. The controversy arose from a misunderstanding of the Korean word “sim-sim-han” used in the apology.
The word “sim-sim-han” is polysemic, which means it has multiple meanings. It is usually defined as “boring
and uninteresting,” but the word used in the apology had another meaning, “expressing the deepest and earnest
sympathies.” When I first encountered this controversy over literacy, I was shocked and thought, “Is the level of
literacyinKoreasolowtothisdegree?”
However,thiswasnotthefirsttimethatasimilarliteracycontroversyaroseintheonlinespaceinKorea.In2020,
asformerPresidentMoonJae-indesignatedAugust17asatemporarypublicholiday,anewsarticletitled“Sa-heul
holiday from Liberation Day” was published. Some netizens misunderstood the Korean word “sa-heul,” meaning
threedays,asfourdaysbecause“sa,”meaningfour,wascontainedintheword“sa-heul.”Asaresult,“sa-heul”even
took the first spot among real-time search chart. In addition, the story of a college student who mistook the word
“geum-yo-il” for “geum-yo-il” which means Friday and failed to submit an assignment on time caused an online
storm.Thus,Ithinkitmaybetimetocultivatetheabilitytounderstandtextbeyondsimplybeingabletoreadtext.
Asthedigitalworldischangingrapidly,thevocabularyusedvariesdependingonthegenerationandenvironment.
Theproportionofthereadingpopulationhasalsodecreasedsharply.Theoldcommonknowledgecamefrombooks
andnewspapers,butthesedayscommonknowledgecomesfromOTTssuchasYouTubeorNetflix.Inaworldwhere
informationcomesfromvideosorimages,theflowofcommonknowledgehaschanged.Asthesourceofinformation
acquisition is now images rather than books and newspapers, the former literary style is becoming unknown. As a
result,knowledgeandwordsthatwereeasilyencounteredinthepastarenolongeravailable.
In the first place, what and who can clearly differentiate or draw a line that clearly differentiates common
knowledge and knowledge that is not common? Maybe the standards for old and current common knowledge have
changed a lot. Yesterday’s common knowledge might not be so common today. Then is it obligatory to know old
common knowledge today? It is clear that common knowledge varies depending on time, space, and community.
Thus,readers,Iwantyoutothinkaboutandestablishstandardsofvitalknowledgetoaccumulatewithoutadoubtin
yourhead.
trulymonica1224@hufs.ac.kr
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www.theargus.org

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