A Victorian-era Greek dictionary has finally been modernized

Most English students working on translating ancient Greek are using a dictionary written in Victorian times.

As you might imagine, some definitions have become outdated, while others gloss over the crudeness of their meaning.

But, the Guardian reports, twenty-three years after a scholar decided it was time to update the Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, a new version is finally coming out.

John Chadwick, who envisioned the reworking of the 1889 book, thought the project would take just five years. (And, presumably, that he would be alive for the finished product — but, sadly, he is not.)

One of his collaborators explains why the update took so long and shares examples of the cleaner translations and their cruder but more accurate versions (so sensitive readers should consider themselves warned) in the Guardian.

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