John Simpson | |
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| Born | 13 October 1953 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England |
| Occupation | Lexicographer; Chief Editor, OED |
| Alma mater | University of York University of Reading |
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John Simpson OBE (born 13 October 1953) is an English lexicographer and was Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) from 1993 to 2013.
John Simpson was born in Cheltenham, where his father was employed at GCHQ, and attended Dean Close School. He gained a BA in English Literature at the University of York in 1975 and an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Reading in 1976.
He is married with two daughters and two granddaughters, and now lives in Cricklade, Wiltshire.
Simpson joined the editorial staff of the OED in 1976 to work on the Supplement to the OED. He was Co-Editor of the Second Edition of the OED, published in 1989, and in 1993 was appointed Chief Editor, a position he held until his retirement in October 2013. As Chief Editor, he led the first comprehensive revision of the OED and oversaw the introduction of its online version. [1] [2]
Simpson is a member of the English Faculty at the University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, and a member of the Philological Society, where the idea of the Dictionary was first proposed in the 1850s. He was a founder member of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language [3] and has acted as an adviser to a number of other national dictionaries, including the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano and the Australian National Dictionary .
He has been awarded two D.Litt degrees, the first in 1999 by the Australian National University for his "distinguished creative achievement as a scholar in lexicography", [4] and the second in 2015 by the University of Leicester for his work on the OED. [5] [6] He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to literature. [7]
Simpson edited the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (1982) and co-edited the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang (1992). He wrote introductions to Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall (1604), B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew (1699), Francis Grose's Popular Superstitions (1787), and James Redding Ware's Victorian Dictionary of Slang and Phrase (1909), published by the Bodleian Library. He co-edits (with Harald Beck) James Joyce Online Notes, a forum for the publication of documentary evidence about the people, words and cultural references in James Joyce's fiction. [8]
His memoir The Word Detective, which tells the story of his time at the Oxford English Dictionary, was published in October 2016 by Little, Brown and in 2017 in paperback by Abacus Books.
His most recent publication - Managing Poverty: Cheltenham Settlement Examinations and Removal Orders, 1831–52, Gloucestershire Records Series 34, 2020 ( ISBN 978-0-900197-99-4) - deals with the experience of paupers in his home town of Cheltenham in the mid-nineteenth century. It won the Alan Ball Local History Award 2020.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world.
Pussy is a term used as a noun, an adjective, and—in rare instances—a verb in the English language. It has several meanings, as slang, as euphemism, and as vulgarity. Most commonly, it is used as a noun with the meaning "cat", "coward", or "weakling". In slang usage, it can mean "vulva or vagina" and less commonly, as a form of synecdoche, meaning "sexual intercourse with a woman". Because of its multiple senses including both innocent and vulgar connotations, pussy is often the subject of double entendre.
Frederick James Furnivall was an English philologist, best known as one of the co-creators of the New English Dictionary. He founded a number of learned societies on early English literature and made pioneering and massive editorial contributions to the subject, of which the most notable was his parallel text edition of The Canterbury Tales. He was one of the founders of and teachers at the London Working Men's College and a lifelong campaigner against injustice.
Charles Talbut Onions was an English grammarian and lexicographer and the fourth editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, FBA was a British lexicographer and philologist. He was the primary editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) from 1879 until his death.
Robert William Burchfield CNZM, CBE was a lexicographer, scholar, and writer, who edited the Oxford English Dictionary for thirty years to 1986, and was chief editor from 1971.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) is an English language dictionary published by the Oxford University Press. The SOED is a two-volume abridgement of the twenty-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Edmund S. C. Weiner is the former co-editor of the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1985–1989) and Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (1993–present). He originally joined the OED staff in 1977, becoming the dictionary's chief philologist.
Marghanita Laski was an English journalist, radio panellist and novelist. She also wrote literary biography, plays and short stories, and contributed about 250,000 additions to the Oxford English Dictionary.
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Nucular is a common, proscribed pronunciation of the word "nuclear". It is a rough phonetic spelling of. The Oxford English Dictionary's entry dates the word's first published appearance to 1943.
Twat is an English-language vulgarism which means the vulva or vagina, and is used figuratively as a derogatory epithet. In British English, it is a common insult referring to an obnoxious or stupid person regardless of gender; in American English, it is rarer and usually used to insult a woman. In Britain, the usual pronunciation rhymes with "hat", while Americans most often use the older pronunciation that rhymes with "squat". This is reflected in the former variant spelling of "twot".
The word kike is an ethnic slur for a Jew.
Michael Proffitt is the eighth chief editor for the Oxford English Dictionary. Brought up in Edinburgh, Proffitt attended the University of Oxford, where he studied English language and literature. After graduation, Proffitt took a job with the O.E.D. in 1989. While at the O.E.D, he managed the new words program for a decade, and between 2003 and 2005 worked on the "Pasadena project" as part of a team that developed a new editing system for the project. Prior to his appointment as chief editor, he worked as project director, managing a large editorial team and prioritizing work.
Richard Charkin is a British publishing executive. He has held executive positions at Pergamon Press, Oxford University Press, Reed International/Reed Elsevier and Current Science Group, and is the former Chief Executive of Macmillan Publishers Limited and Executive Director of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck. In 2015, he became President of the International Publishers Association. He was Executive Director of Bloomsbury from 2007 to 2018 and is currently President of Bloomsbury China and of John Wisden. He is also a non-executive director of Institute of Physics Publishing, and is Chair of Common Purpose.
The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary is a 2006 book by three editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall and Edmund Weiner. It examines J. R. R. Tolkien's brief period working as a lexicographer with the OED after World War I, traces his use of philology as it is apparent in his writings, and in particular in his legendarium, and finally examines in detail over 100 words that he used, developed or invented.
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