Are super girls super enough to be in cihai?
| Oct. 22 - Are the Super Girls super enough to make it into China's most authoritative dictionary?
The editors of Cihai are working on a new edition, and they say they haven't decided yet. "The editing preparation of the 2009 edition of the dictionary has just started," Qin Zhenting, an editor at the Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, which prints Cihai, told China Daily on Friday. "Which new words will be added, and which old ones will be deleted, remains unknown." The TV programme that brought the Super Girls into the public eye has certainly made an impact on Chinese society since its debut in 2004. The singing competition, based on one that began in 2001 in the United Kingdom as "Pop Idol" and was copied in the United States the following year as "American Idol," has triggered a public debate about whether the word should be included in Cihai. Qin said the new edition will include terms such as "Shenzhou VI," the name of China's second manned spacecraft, and Ba Jin, a late master of contemporary Chinese literature. The controversy began earlier this week, when media reported that Cihai, as a dictionary that prides itself on its educational and historical value, would not include terms such as "Super Girl." The Beijing News quoted an official surnamed Chen as saying that some online words were popular, but Cihai preferred words of both popularity and stability those that can withstand the test of time and usage. Wang Shichuan, a reporter from China Economic News, said: "We all agree on the great contribution of Ba Jin, but who can underestimate the social influence of the Super Girls?" The same newspaper also quoted Xia Nong, a former Cihai editor, as saying that adopting new rules and concepts on how to revise and enrich Cihai were urgent matters. "We need to take the mindset of being modest and comprehensive; otherwise, new terms such as 'Super Girls' won't be included," Xia said. Renmin University Professor Zhao Gong told China Daily: "Of course 'Super Girls' should be edited into Cihai. If some strange words can be in there, why not 'Super Girls'? Even though it may die out after a few years just as, say, 'Shenzhou VI' will be replaced by 'Shenzhou IX' one day." Cihai records new words reflecting the latest developments in the social and natural sciences, including biology, electronics, computer science and economics. The 1999 version had 19,485 Chinese characters and 122,836 vocabulary entries, including "Deng Xiaoping Theory," "socialist market economy" and "Internet."
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