"The new words we selected for the dictionary are those related to social phenomena in recent years. They are not just words, but cultural symbols, reflecting our changing society," Yu Dianli, manager of Commercial Press, the publisher of the dictionary, said on Sunday.

BUT... "We abandoned these words [shengnan, shengnu] because it's kind of rude to label this group (with such words)," Jiang Lansheng, an expert in linguistics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who was responsible for the revisions, was quoted by Chinese Central Television as saying on Sunday. "Besides, tongzhi, (which literally means) comrade in English, can be used to call gay people now. But we don't want to promote the use of such a word in official occasions, so we didn't add it to the new edition."