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Comment by Grustaf | Hacker News Reader

The article gives βλαύτη as an example of a word whose definition was updated in order to remove offensive language. They're not saying the old definition was incorrect, there is no indication of that.

I'm no expert, but I did study 2 years of full time Greek at uni. I don't specifically about βλαύτη, but I do know that berating effeminate or overly vain men would not be out of character for any Greek author.

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> The article gives βλαύτη as an example of a word whose definition was updated in order to remove offensive language.

Ackcherly, it says "Antiquated and offensive language also gets a makeover." This may be just the antiquated bit, not the offensive one.

The article was written by a journalist. The dictionary was written by the Professors. If they say that their definition is better I'm going with that above both a journalist and a second year student unless you provide something a little more compelling evidence-wise.

Presumably they talked to the editors. I don’t think they opened up LSJ at random, compared an entry to the new version and concluded that the change was made for the sake of political correctness.

I suspect your assumptions are wrong because you don't know many journalists. I have that misfortune. They will have taken the juiciest part of whatever they were told and made a story from it. Facts are entirely secondary.

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