Gally.Net

Writings > Lexical Leavings

PreviousNext

Today, I bought a copy of the sixth edition (2002) of Kenkyusha's New English-Japanese Dictionary. The introduction summarizes how the dictionary has been revised and updated since the fifth edition in 1980, including:
最近20年間の社会状況の変化を考慮し、訳語・用例において不適切となった記述内容を改めた.
The companion Japanese-English volume (the Green Goddess) was also cleared of many example sentences that would no longer be considered acceptable, particularly with regard to people with disabilities. While working on that dictionary, though, I sometimes wondered what sorts of references will be unacceptable twenty years from now. Smoking? Using fossil fuels? Eating meat? Or something that we would never imagine now?

(August 12, 2003)