치킨엔 콜라가 국룰이야

The line, explained

It is late, the group is hungry, and someone is placing a delivery order for fried chicken. Then the debate starts: beer, cola, or something else? One friend settles it: 'Cola with fried chicken is the unwritten rule.' The word that ends the argument is 국룰, the 'national rule'. It is slang for anything so widely done in Korea that it feels like law, even though nobody ever wrote it down.

치킨 is fried chicken, from the English word chicken, but in Korea it almost always means the crispy delivery kind, one of the country's favourite late-night foods. 엔 is a squeezed form of 에는: 에 means at or with, and 는 adds 'as for'. So 치킨엔 is 'when it comes to chicken'. In sound, the ㄴ of 킨 slides into 엔: chi-kin-en. The same shape works for any occasion: 비 오는 날엔, on rainy days.

콜라 is cola, borrowed from English, and pronounced kol-la with a double ㄹ. With the subject marker 가, it is the thing being declared the rule. Koreans also love the pairing 치맥, chicken plus 맥주, beer, but many people insist cola is the true partner. In this line, the friend is picking a side, and 국룰 is the trump card that makes the choice sound like settled fact.

국룰 is short for 국민 룰, 'the people's rule' or 'the national rule'. 국민 means the citizens of a country, and 룰 is the English rule. It is a noun, so it takes 이다: 국룰이야, casual 'it is the rule'. In sound, the ㄱ at the end of 국 becomes ㅇ before ㄹ, and the ㄹ turns into ㄴ, so it is pronounced 궁눌, gung-nul. Before 이야, the ㄹ slides over: gung-nu-ri-ya. You will also hear 국룰이지, 'that's the rule, obviously'.

Say it with total confidence, as if quoting the constitution: chi-kin-en kol-la-ga gung-nu-ri-ya. Then lay down other national rules: 라면엔 김치가 국룰이야, kimchi with ramyeon is the rule; 비 오는 날엔 파전이 국룰이야, pajeon on rainy days is the rule; 생일엔 미역국이 국룰이야, seaweed soup on birthdays is the rule. Every one is a little window into Korean daily life, and every one is open to friendly debate.