There's no "g" sound in 막걸리. The two ㄱ side by side turn it into something like a double K. It's no surprise that the ones who thought 막걸리 had a "g" sound in it all thought the "makgeolli" spelling was best.

And since they're all familiar with the weird "eo" construct, they know how to suspend their Anglophone tendencies to pronounce "geo" like the car or something and pronounce it 거. Try the same thing, as I had to do once for a couple companies trying to choose between M-R and NAKL, with random people with no substantial exposure to Korean Romanization systems, and you might get quite different results. 막... 끼올리

Standardization did exist before Revised Romanization. It would have been money better spent reinforcing that instead of introducing a Romanization that leads people to mispronounce so many words.

right on, Dan! if only i could drink it here (i mean the real stuff, not the cheap bottles they import).

~paula, who would be crying in her makgeolli if she could get some

Romanization issues aside, I do want to say that I thought Joe MacPherson's explanation of why it should be called rice beer instead of rice wine was very interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way, but then, I'm not really a foodie (er... drinkie).

From a descriptive language approach, "rice wine" is perfectly okay because we have started to use the word wine for any alcoholic drink made from some plant. That approach has the added appeal that it gives people in the know — such as Joe — the chance to raise a finger in objection and then set us all straight with an informative little spiel. (And I mean that in the nicest way.)

WORD VERIFICATION: jointery (which is what I'm going to call my medical marijuana dispensary as soon as I get back to California)

why did his a change in each of the readings?

Why do you only interview native English speakers, and specifically North Americans??? The way non-native English speakers read roman characters varies wildly. Your video would be much more interesting if you included people from different backgrounds. It's not too hard to find people from a broad range of countries if you hand around universities or Itaewon.

I've never heard it referred to as "Korean rice beer" but I think it's awesome and makes a lot of sense to run with that rather than any Romanisation or "Korean rice wine".

Koreans seem to obsess over the way people pronounce Korean foods. Decisions on how to refer to foods seems to come from an ideological perspective rather than a pragmatic one... or some sort of delight in hearing non-Koreans speak Korean words, as if the utterance of names of Korean foods across the word is some sort of inherently valuable dispersion of Korean culture worth pursuing. If the goal is to get people to know, recognize, and enjoy Korean foods, the side goal of evangelizing the Korean language itself should be eliminated, because it would seem to serve only as an obstacle for the primary goal.

"Rice beer" sounds a lot more accessible and interesting than "rice wine" to me. Someone should commission a study of people in key target countries where they hope to spur 막걸리 sales, and 500 people whether they'd be interested in "Korean rice beer", and ask them what images this phrase conjures up. Then ask 500 people about "Korean rice wine". My guess is that the first one would be more popular, because beer is seen as something more accessible, and the idea of "rice beer" would be more interesting. "Rice wine" sounds a bit milquetoast and emasculated, which I'd argue is exactly the opposite connotation of 막걸리 in Korean culture. So I think "rice beer" actually serves to honor Korean culture better than "rice wine" or a Romanization because it uses Western people's existing perceptions as a shortcut to understanding the atmosphere and role of the beverage itself.