Friday, November 21, 2014

Committed Suicide or Ending One's Own Life

Shimane Prefectural government officially ended to use a word 自殺 or suicide in their documents in 2013. Since then the government began to use 自死 instead of 自殺. It's hard to translate into English, but someone tried to do it like "ending one's own life". Let me know any good ideas for it. 
Anyway, that was because a mother who has a son died by suicide in Shimane requested to the government to change the word 自殺 to 自死. She had been suffering to say 自殺 or killed oneself for her son's death. She preferred to say 自死 because it sounds kind to her. 
Some people have agreed with the idea. They say the word 自殺 sound hurt the relatives' mind because of the caracter "殺" that means kill. 
On the other hand, some people have opposed it because the word 殺 might prevent someone to commit suicide. 
I think the changing is ucceptabl because 自死 is not a new word but a common Japanese for a long time. And I don't think the word 殺 can prevent suicide. What do you think of it? 

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