sweet potato · plot development which frustrates the reader (e.g. the protagonist fails to achieve their goal)
zıt: 사이다
köken: First attested in the Mulmyeonggo (물명고 / 物名考), 1824, as Early Modern Korean 고금아 (Yale: kokuma), borrowed from Japanese 孝行芋 (kōkō imo), a term used in the Tsushima dialect. Some earlier attestations are known, but they are in the context of quoting the dialectal Japanese word, not in a Korean context. Korean words for potatoes and sweet potatoes When sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) were first…
sweet potato (a tropical perennial American vine, Ipomoea batatas, having a fleshy tuber) · sweet potato (the tuber of this plant cooked as a vegetable)
köken: Borrowed from Mexican Spanish camote (“sweet potato”), from Classical Nahuatl camohtli. The sense about performing badly is possibly an expression suggesting students should instead plant potatoes, or possibly a play on the word kamot (“scratch”), about scratching one's head when not knowing what to do. However, this sense already exists as part of Mexican Spanish slang: see verb Spanish camotear…