shojo vs shôjo
This
node has been renamed back and forth a couple of times, so it's time to set the record straight and educate the public in the intricacies of
long vowels in Japanese while I'm at it.
This node is henceforth shojo because E2 bakufu policy is to use only short vowels in Japanese node titles. Elsewhere lies chaos; see Editor Log: February 2003 for a more detailed rationale.
And now the definitions of the words in question:
- shôjo 少女
- daughter; young lady; virgin; maiden; little girl
- shojo 処女
- virgin; maiden
...and for completeness' sake...
- shôjô 猩猩
- orangutan; heavy drinker
(and a whole lot of other things for other kanji, none of them terribly common)
The first of these, with the long vowel, is by far the more common of the two, and the careful reader will observe that
virgin is in fact a (secondary) meaning for it as well. You are thus unlikely to make any really
mortifying mistakes with this particular pair.
Definitions courtesy of JDICT. Thanks to sekicho for the monkey.