Re: EDICT and gairaigo or colloquial nihongo

[turnbull@example.com (Stephen J. Turnbull)]

>>>>> "Jim" == Jim Breen <jwb@example.com> writes:

[re: edict.el]

    Jim> It is older. I emailed the author about it a while ago.

Me, too.  He said he's out of it (deep into the dissertation muck, it
seems) but would like to hear about progress just because it was once
"his baby."

[snip]
    Jim> I didn't mean start keying in an existing book. That's a
    Jim> no-no. It is fine to *use* existing dictionaries for
    Jim> "accurate lexicographical information" as Nelson put it, but
    Jim> plagiarism to copy entries. (Often it is a fine line.)

:-( :-(  Unfortunately, more honored in the breach than the observance
in Japan.  My experience has been that inaccurate, ambiguous, or
unintelligible translations are preserved word-for-word, and in at
least one case typo-for-typo, across most of the popular high
school/college ei-wa/wa-ei dictionaries.  Even some of the newer ones,
like Kenkyusha's mostly excellent Furigana English-Japanese
Dictionary, occasionally reproduce the same tired old entries.

However, recent history suggests that freelance freeware producers are 
far more likely to be sued for such plagiarism than members of the
publishing cartel.

Steve

-- 
                            Stephen J. Turnbull
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences                    Yaseppochi-Gumi
University of Tsukuba                      http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/
Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, 305 JAPAN                 turnbull@example.com
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