Transcription Error in Rahula's What the Buddha Taught

Walpola Rahula’s classic What the Buddha Taught has a nice selection of translations from the Pali canon in the back. I was reading a few of them with students today, and someone asked about the phrase "with few dudes" in the Metta-sutta / “Universal Love” discourse. Somehow I had always read over this, so I had no explanation. The OED has no obscure alternative meaning of “dudes” that would explain it, so after class I went back to the Pali source text. The phrase in question translates appakicco, which would be alpakṛtya in Sanskrit. So it means something like “with little responsibility.”

I propose that Rahula was dictating his translation to an assistant who typed as Rahula spoke. Rahula said "with few duties" and his assistant heard or assumed he meant “with few dudes” without giving it any thought.

Perhaps this can be corrected at last in a future edition.