I noticed recently we have 3 entries with commas, specifically “Ideographic commas”, U+3001 (、) in the kanji and reading:
Out of these three, two have entries in daijr, with the commas intact. One is in daijs, without the comma. I’ve noticed that daijr will very often include commas where daijs will not: for their respective entries for the saying “虎は死して皮を留め人は死して名を残す”, daijr has a comma after “留め", while daijs doesn’t. Likewise it’s “天知る，地知る，我知る，人知る” in daijr but “天知る地知る我知る子知る” in daijs, and so on. On the other hand, in daijs “知る” entry, the same proverb is listed under “[下接句]” as “天ݾ ;る、地知る、我知る、子(し)知る”.
Daijs and daijr also use different symbols for their commas, at least on dic.yahoo.jp: daijr uses “，” ("Fullwidth Comma”, U+FF0C), while daijs uses “、” (“Ideographic Comma”, U+3001).
Daijs does have a handful of entries that do include commas; doing a search on dic.yahoo.jp with the ideographic comma, I got a list of 50 entries. I think I counted 10 which aren’t titles of novels, etc., among them “権力は腐敗する、絶対的権力は絶対に腐敗する”. Oddly enough, out of the 5 of those 10 entries that also have entries in daijr, 3 do not actually have a comma in daijr!
Even when daij both don’t use commas though, other sources might: in daij (and JMDict): “沈黙は金雄弁は銀”, but in 新和英中辞典, 英語ことわざ教訓辞典and kotowaza-allguide; “沈黙は金、雄弁は銀”.
When should we be using commas in JMDict?
;
Marcus
--Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University
http://www.jimbreen.org/