THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity
    • Blog (Archived)

THE WAY OF KICKING AND PUNCHING

1/6/2019

2 Comments

 
It's been spelled Taekwondo, Taekwon-Do, Tae Kwon Do, and TaeKwon Do, but, essentially, the word for the martial art boils down to three parts in the original Korean: tae, meaning "to kick" or otherwise cause damage with your foot, gwon, meaning "to punch", and do, meaning "the way". Together, this is interpreted as meaning "the way of kicking and punching". Asian etymologies are really hard for me to do, because they combine parts of characters and can't really be traced the way English ones can, so I won't comment further on something I don't know much about. However, let's talk about form. Of all the capitalizations and spellings since the word's introduction in the 1960s, the different capitalizations of taekwondo and Taekwondo are about tied for usages, in both literature and Google searches. The other terms exist but are less frequent.
2 Comments
Thomas Ottaway
1/9/2019 01:52:39 am

Related: "do" also means the way in Japanese as in judo which roughly translates to gentle way.

This is the same character as the Chinese word "dao" 道 of the same meaning. This character is used in the word for daoism.

Reply
Adam Aleksic link
1/11/2019 10:33:31 am

Thanks Thomas! Glad you're still reading my blog

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. I have a linguistics degree from Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote my thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy traveling, trivia, philosophy, board games, conlanging, and art history. 

    Archives

    December 2023
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    TAGS

    All
    Interview
    Satire

Picture
CONTACT: [email protected]
SUBSTACK • TIKTOK • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE
I do not have a facebook account that's an impostor
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity
    • Blog (Archived)