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Kids’ Hello Kitty Dictionary is surprisingly gritty

Hello Kitty’s reach of product endorsements spreads far and wide like so many whiskers from her pillowy white face. From contact lenses to passenger planes to melons, her adorable ribbon can be seen on everything, so a Hello Kitty Dictionary is hardly a shock.

What is shocking, however, is how encompassing this dictionary is including terms from the darker corners of human existence. It could be a good thing though as learning about forms of mob lynching is perhaps best done through the gentle cupcake decorated words of Hello Kitty.

On Amazon UK, the Hello Kitty Dictionary made in cooperation with Collins Dictionaries is described as having “carefully developed definitions, aimed at providing all the information and help students need.” Some of this information was found by Jonathan Meyer who Tweeted the discovery.

https://twitter.com/jonathangmeyer/statuses/491822283850514432

That is a really good trick for remembering the spelling of “necessary.” However, if you follow Mr. Meyer’s suggestion and look up “necklace” in the Kitty-chan dictionary, you’ll see a definition for a form of execution that involves lighting people on fire for the final excruciatingly painful minutes of their life.

It’s a bold editorial choice, but who’s to say what students need to be aware of? I looked around the Amazon site to see if any customers noticed. There were no complains about necklacing but there was this user review:

We could neither confirm nor deny the actual presence of “rape” in the Hello Kitty Dictionary but skimming through the sample pages online there were some other interesting entries.

Gas
“2 – To gas people or animals means to kill them with poisonous gas.”

There’s also a helpful tip on the correct pronunciation of “abuse” when used as a verb or a noun.

According to one of the comments on Twitter this version of the dictionary has been revised. However, it seems the Hello Kitty Dictionary is intended for older readers going by the cute graduate kitty on the cover, so it’s hard to say if they’re really out of line with their word choices.

On a side note, while looking through the Hello Kitty Dictionary for odd entries, I did find it to be a rather good dictionary for kids in terms of usability. The definitions were mostly well-worded and the spelling and pronunciation tips seemed quite good too.

So if you want to expand your child’s vocabulary and expose them to man’s inhumanity to man in a safe and cute environment, the Hello Kitty Dictionary may be for you!

Source: Twitter, Amazon UK
Original article by Mr. Sato
[ Read in Japanese ]

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