[KS] using numbers to form phrases

[Frank Hoffmann]

Well, might sound unintentionally ironic -- but: the Chinese have no 
alphabet, and thus typing a domain name in Latin letters would mean to 
use a foreign language. Arabic numerals have in the past decades widely 
been adapted! Not so English as such (or the Latin alphabet), in spite 
of the existence of Pinyin.

So, is there not a very simple historic reason then for this use of 
these Arabic numerals in domain names? I mean, it has only been for a 
rather short time that you can use, for example, Han'gŭl (http://한국학
.com) or Chinese characters in domain names. Isn't the popularity of 
Arabic numerals just a left-over from the time before Chinese character 
domains were allowed?

By the way -- easier to remember your form URL as
http://goo.gl/forms/ok0ZFP3nzv
is:
http://韩国学.移动

Works just as well :::)

Frank



On Sun, 19 Oct 2014 17:18:44 -0700, Witteveen GP wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> 
> 
> I'd like to ask your help with language play in Korean (and other 
> languages you may know, too).
> 
> The morning radio show in USA, Weekend Edition Saturday, on October 
> 18, 2014 included this story, "Chinese Find Number URLs Easier Than 
> Letters."
> Transcript at www.npr.org/templates/ transcript/transcript.php? 
> storyId=357153450
> 
> When I was in Japan, I can remember "kotoba asobi" (suji asobi?) in 
> telephone numbers, too. 
> I am curious about Korean language play.
> Please fill in some examples you have seen. And ask your students, 
> friends and family to contribute, too!
> http://goo.gl/forms/ok0ZFP3nzv
> 
> Hit "submit" and then view the growing number of examples contributed 
> by others.
> 
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-= Here are the opening lines of the radio story transcript:
> 
> A lot of Chinese websites seem to have a different form of URLs, or 
> web addresses. They use numbers, not names. 
> Long numbers, too, seemingly at random. McDonald's website isn't 
> spelled McDonald's, it's 4008-517-517.cn. 
> 
> A dating website is 5201314.com. Why? Christopher Beam, staff writer 
> with The New Republic, who lives in Beijing 
> wondered and that's when he began to notice that the numbers are 
> hardly random.
> 
> or listen to the broadcast version,
> http://www.npr.org/2014/10/18/ 357153450/chinese-find-number- 
> urls-easier-than-letters
> 
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Guven Peter Witteveen, sjmi at hotmail dotcom
> ; skype address: gpwitteveen

--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreanstudies.com