One of the interesting things about the Korean use of language as euphemism for bribery is the enthusiasm for corrupting English loanwords. Two examples that come to mind immediately are “rebate” and “lobbying”. Our law office gets asked quite often about the propriety of rebates, and of lobbying, and our clients are often somewhat surprised to finally discover what their Korean staff have been asking for permission to do. “Rebate” doesn’t mean rebate, it means kickback. “Lobbying” doesn’t mean lobbying, it means delivering a bag full of money to a politician.

Naturally, as someone said up above, there are lots of different words for $& in English. The difference is that those words aren’t used instead of the word $& in official contexts. So if you saw a news article about a prostitute giving blow jobs on main street USA, somewhere in the English article you would see the word “$& ,” as in “$& ual act,” “oral $& ,” or the like. The Korean article might not use something as vulgar as blow job, but it still might not have the $& word. Hence, you have to know all the different terms. Wonjo gyoje isn’t even in the dictionary, those two words as a term, but there it is in the newspaper. You _could_ say “the man had said he was going to the girls a regular ‘allowance’ to have $& with him over a length of time.” But no, it’s wonjo gyoje - I’ll say “maintaining friendship with financial support.” Nowhere do you see description of the fact that doesn’t mean he wanted to make it worth their while to have an innocent cup of coffee.

In court, of course, it would still be called (attempted) “prostitution with a minor,” and all the different words for “bribe” would still be “bribe.” But as an example of words for bribe, try tteokgap. Here it is in a news article. It’s in the title and in the story. The prosecution was hot in pursuit of some embezzlement charges and happened upon a list of people who were on the take. But the list is described as a “rice cake money” list - people who were being given regular bribes. Nowhere does it describe what “rice cake money” actually is, no mention of what it really is, which is “bribery,” thought that’s what the guys will also be charged with in addition to embezzlement.

This is really an issue of how language is used in (South, not North or ethnic Korean China) Korea - having to know all the metaphors/similes for crimes that are not stated in their formal form. I know defectors and Koreans from China, completely fluent in Korean, of course, who have a hard time understanding the news in SK because of that. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with using other terms as well, but it shows you how (1) frequent and (2) widely known these crimes and allegoric terms are that papers don’t have to include the legal term at all.

You don’t find slang terms for “growing weed in the countryside” in Korean newspapers, thought they undoubtedly exist. If the papers started using the slang for that (while ommitting the official term), people wouldn’t understand. Bribery and prostitution are so common, so frequently in the news, that the general public is familiar with the many slang terms for the many manifestations of each.

EFL Geek asked about a list… hm, would be interesting to see if anyone see soemthing.

Not sure why it is considered bunk. I think I read that in ‘About the fifty states.’