In Other Languages
In Chinese, trolling is referred to as bái mù (Chinese: 白目; literally "white eye"), which can be straightforwardly explained as "eyes without pupils", in the sense that whilst the pupil of the eye is used for vision, the white section of the eye cannot see, and trolling involves blindly talking nonsense over the internet, having total disregard to sensitivities or being oblivious to the situation at hand, akin to having eyes without pupils. An alternative term is bái làn (Chinese: 白爛; literally "white rot"), which describes a post completely nonsensical and full of folly made to upset others, and derives from a Taiwanese slang term for the male genitalia, where genitalia that is pale white in colour represents that someone is young, and thus foolish. Both terms originate from Taiwan, and are also used in Hong Kong and mainland China. Another term, xiǎo bái (Chinese: 小白; literally "little white") is a derogatory term that refers to both bái mù and bái làn that is used on anonymous posting internet forums. Another common term for a troll used in mainland China is pēn zi (Chinese: 噴子; literally "sprayer, spurter").
In Japanese, tsuri (釣り?) means "fishing" and refers to intentionally misleading posts whose only purpose is to get the readers to react, i.e. get trolled. arashi (荒らし?) means "laying waste" and can also be used to refer to simple spamming.
In Icelandic, þurs (a thurs) or tröll (a troll) may refer to trolls, the verbs þursa (to troll) or þursast (to be trolling, to troll about) may be used.
In Korean, nak-si (낚시) means "fishing", and is used to refer to Internet trolling attempts, as well as purposefully misleading post titles. A person who recognizes the troll after having responded (or, in case of a post title nak-si, having read the actual post) would often refer to himself as a caught fish.
In Portuguese, more commonly in its Brazilian variant, troll (produced in most of Brazil as spelling pronunciation) is the usual term to denote internet trolls (examples of common derivate terms are trollismo or trollagem, "trolling", and the verb trollar, "to troll", which entered popular use), but an older expression, used by those which want to avoid anglicisms or slangs, is complexo do pombo enxadrista to denote trolling behavior, and pombos enxadristas (literally, "chessplayer pigeons") or simply pombos are the terms used to name the trolls. The terms are explained by an adage or popular saying: "Arguing with fulano (i.e. John Doe) is the same as playing chess with a pigeon: the pigeon defecates on the table, drop the pieces and simply fly, claiming victory."
In Thai, the term "krean" (เกรียน) has been adopted to address Internet trolls. The term literally refers to a closely cropped hairstyle worn by most school boys in Thailand, thus equating Internet trolls to school boys. The term "tob krean" (ตบเกรียน), or "slapping a cropped head", refers to the act of posting intellectual replies to refute and cause the messages of Internet trolls to be perceived as unintelligent.
In Sinhala Language this is called ala kiríma (අල කිරීම), which means "Turning it into Potatoes (Sabotage)". Sometimes it is used as ala vagaa kiríma (අල වගා කිරීම) - "Planting Potatoes". People/Profiles who does trolling often are called "Potato Planters" - ala vagákaruvan (අල වගාකරුවන්). This seems to be originated from university slang ala veda (අල වැඩ) which means "Potato business" is used for breaking the laws/codes of the university.
Read more about this topic: Cool Story Bro, Origin and Etymology
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