Lexical Leavings
by Tom Gally
English-Japanese
dictionaries note some English collective nouns that are
often misused by Japanese people speaking English, such as "vocabulary" (which
Japanese sometimes use to mean "a vocabulary item"). Last night, I heard someone
say "repertoires" to mean "pieces in a person's repertoire," and at
least two dictionaries I checked did not indicate that that is
incorrect. Yet another example is "menu." A full list of such words would be useful.(December 23, 2002)