# finger flick on someone's forehead



## vientito

I keep seeing koreans in dramas, at times during 화투, flick their middle fingers on someone's forehead as a sort of penalty.

How is this called in Korean and what's its origin?


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## Rance

You must be referring to 딱밤(depending on regions, 딱콩, 땅콩, 땡고).
When you hit someone else's (fore)head with fist, it's called 꿀밤.
Sometimes you do hear expression like "집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주었다".
So the origin must be 꿀밤.
Well flickered finger onto forehead sounds 딱.
If you join those two terms, you get 딱밤.


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## jakartaman

Rance said:


> Sometimes you do hear expression like "집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주었다".



I think Rance meant "집게손가락을 튕겨 딱밤을 주었다."

딱밤: http://cfile4.uf.tistory.com/image/024B73345136B4D90866DA
꿀밤: http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=107&oid=410&aid=0000086322

꿀밤 is literally a honey(sweet) chestnut but is a euphemism to mean the torturing--though usually done playfully--action in the photo.

Korean parents or teachers used to inflict 꿀밤 on their children as a punishment for misbehavior or stupidity. Kids get it from them and do the same thing to their friends.

Giving someone 꿀밤 is like hitting his head with a chestnut, which will cause the same kind of pain.

And upon hearing '꿀'밤, the unsuspecting kid will expect to get something sweet but end up getting an unpleasant physically punishment, which will teach him a lesson.

딱밤 must have been made up by combining the sound "딱" and "밤" from 꿀밤 as Rance pointed out.


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## Rance

Well the expression "집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주었다" itself is somewhat rare to me as well, but it's not a wrong expression.


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## jakartaman

Rance said:


> Well the expression "집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주었다" itself is somewhat rare to me as well, but it's not a wrong expression.



국립국어원 doesn't disappoint me as usual. They don't even remember the definition of 꿀밤 that they made. 
*꿀-밤: *「명사」
주먹 끝으로 가볍게 머리를 때리는 짓.

You don't inflict 꿀밤 by flicking your index finger. That's called 딱밤, which everybody knows except those at 국립국어원--it's not found in their dictionary!!!

Anyway, that place is notorious for going their own way ignoring what the majority of educated Koreans really use in everyday speech.

(Sorry Rance if you belong there. No offense!  )


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## Rance

No worry jakartaman, I don't take offense for pointing out (possible) flaws. 
I'm not associated with 국립국어원 and I do not agree with every rules they set up either.
They are quite notorious to go against the very definition of 표준어(the dialect spoken by majority of educated Koreans) when they makes rules for 표준어.

However in a language, the meaning of a word can evolve and this phenomenon is called semantic shift.
If we assume word 꿀밤 was there before the word 딱밤, the meaning of 꿀밤 could have been broader when there wasn't word 딱밤
What it meant in the past does not necessarily mean the same at the present time, and that might be one reason not to be included in their dictionary.

Or simply before the creation of word 딱밤, the closest expression to describe the action could have been "집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주다".
It does sound more intuitive than "집게손가락을 튕겨 이마를 치다", but this is subjective opinion.
To speak frankly, I never heard people saying 집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주다 myself. 
Maybe I never heard it because I didn't live through the pre-era of 딱밤.
However it seems quite plausible theory that when the practice of 딱밤 became popular, people then felt the need to name the practice properly(or just shorter).
Like word 안습, someone could just come up with term and got stuck with it, who knows? =)

Anyhow if you look up the word 튕기다,  Naver Dictionary does include "나는 가위바위보에서 진 아이에게 집게손가락을 튕겨 꿀밤을 주었다." as an example.
Unless there are certain reasons to doubt/argue, I think it's safe to assume the dictionary to be correct.
Hence as stated before, it seems like word 딱밤 originated from 꿀밤.


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## vientito

Thanks everyone for their informative input.

I am also happy to know the common usage of 튕기다 as being rejected by someone actually has a physical aspect to it


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