After a member of an idol group from Geoje, South Gyeongsang, said "museopno" on a YouTube broadcast, former Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk and conservative opposition figures engaged in a public war of words over the expression "no."
After the former leader posted a message saying people should distinguish between the Busan–Yeongnam dialect and expressions used on the far-right online community Ilgan Best Storage (Ilbe), conservative opposition circles pushed back, saying he was branding the dialect as an Ilbe-style expression.
On the 5th on Facebook, the former leader said, "There are people who defend Ilbe's use of adding 'no' at the end of a sentence to mock President Roh Moo-hyun by saying people in Busan and Yeongnam use it that way," and added, "In my observation, Ilbe mechanically attaches 'no' after standard Korean."
In response, Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok wrote on Facebook, "The person who in 2019 said to take up spears is now trying to vet ideology over a sentence ending," and criticized, "A 22-year-old idol from Geoje, South Gyeongsang, was branded Ilbe just because the person said 'museopno' in the hometown dialect."
Lee said, "The very fact that 'no' became a meme among some in the younger generation was created by combining President Roh Moo-hyun's family name with the Gyeongsang dialect he used all his life," and argued, "But if you uproot the words by scolding the people who made the meme, the Gyeongsang dialect really becomes language only those people can use. That is precisely the victory Ilbe most wanted."
People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun also criticized on Facebook, saying, "It is shocking beyond words to see even dialect used in everyday exclamations or as muttered asides being mechanically branded as Ilbe expressions."
Aiming at the former leader, he added, "Is this really what a political leader who once led a bona fide party should do?" and said, "I feel deep disgust at the practice of applying an ideological litmus test to a single dialect word and dividing the public."