John Simpson (lexicographer)
Encyclopedia
John Andrew Simpson is a British lexicographer
and senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary
(OED). Simpson was co-editor of the second edition, which ran to 20 volumes published in 1989, a combination of the original text with several supplemental volumes that had followed. He also directed the conversion of the OED’s vast printed resources into a streamlined electronic database, bringing the entire second edition on-line in March 2000.
Simpson lectures widely on language, lexicography, and the research underway at the OED.
, Gloucestershire, the son of Robert Morris and Joan Margaret. He received a BA
degree in English literature
from the University of York
and a MA
in medieval studies
from the University of Reading
and came to lexicography through studying English literature and philology
, especially that of the medieval period
.
within the Oxford University Press
. His first task was working on neologisms for a supplement to the OED. At this time, the process of compiling the dictionary
was essentially the same as it had been when it began in the 19th century. The bulk of the work consisted of the analysis of millions of index card
s, each one containing a quotation as an example of a word's usage.
In 1981 Simpson was hired to work on the third supplement, which was published in 1982; the fourth followed in 1986. These added 69,300 entries and 527,000 quotations to the total. Dictionaries, however, need to be updated constantly to remain current, but adding yet another supplement was deemed awkward by the editors because it would require users to consult not only two but three separate alphabetical listings to find a word. The staff decided that the best solution was to merge the supplements with the original edition into a single, integrated compendium. Entries could be consolidated, duplicates deleted, and everything properly ordered and cross-referenced. The editors also realized that the traditional print method of compilation would be too cumbersome when dealing with such a mass of information, and that computers were not simply the best alternative, but perhaps the only means of assuring a future for the dictionary.
Work on the second edition was officially inaugurated in 1984; Edmund Weiner
was appointed to be an editor, and Simpson joined him as soon as the supplement was completed, in 1986. The British division of IBM donated a 4341 mainframe computer
and other hardware, in addition to committing a small team of computer experts to manage the system. The University of Waterloo
in Ontario, Canada
volunteered to design the database. More than 120 keyboarders
were hired to input the entire text (350,000,000 characters plus accompanying computer code
). The cost of the project reached $13.5 million, but met the five-year deadline.
When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. TIME magazine dubbed it "a scholarly Everest," and Richard Boston
, writing for The Guardian
(24 March 1989), called it "one of the wonders of the world." The dictionary's size alone merits such encomiums: its 20 volumes contain 21,730 pages and weigh a total of 137 pounds. The text is about 60 million words long and includes 290,000 main entries (which is about 40,000 more than the first edition), definitions of about 600,000 word forms, and almost 2.5 million quotations.
As co-editor of the second edition, Simpson had specialized in tracking down new influences on language. He was responsible for vetting the 5,000 new words (and new senses of existing words) that were included in the second edition. The majority of these were derived from developments in science, business, medicine, and North American slang. Examples include "yuppification", "clone", "breakdancing", "ghetto blaster", "basket case", "credit union", "AIDS", "glasnost", "Fortune 500", "networking", and "nose job". As a result, the language of the second OED, Simpson explained to Herbert Mitgang of the New York Times (22 March 1989), "is not just the so-called King's English, or Queen's English, but the people's English."
s, derivation
s, pronunciation
s, and historical quotation
s--a task requiring the efforts of more than 300 scholars, researchers, readers, and consultants. It is projected to cost about $55 million. As Simpson explained to James Eve for The Times
(9 March 2000), "We think of it as the largest humanities research programme in the world."
Simpson, after becoming chief editor of the OED in 1993, brought the dictionary into the Internet
age with its online debut in 2000. "I think the OEDs first editor, James Murray, would have been quite pleased," Simpson remarked to James Eve. "He would have seen it as the obvious way for the dictionary to go. And in fact, the way that he structured the dictionary with its series of branches, nested senses, meanings and the way that the quotations are arranged converts very easily on to computer."
For the third edition, Simpson is directing the first major revision of the dictionary since its publication in 1933. Each entry is being reviewed in light of improved documentary evidence
and new developments in linguistic scholarship. For many words, earlier usages have been discovered. Words whose meaning have shifted since their inclusion, are being brought up to date. Historical notes, updated pronunciations, and lists of variant spellings will also be added. The end result is expected to double the overall length of the text. The style of the dictionary will also be changing slightly. The original text was more literary, with most of the quotations taken from novels, plays, and the like. The new edition, however, will reference all manner of printed resources, such as cookbooks, wills, technical manuals, specialist journals, and rock lyrics.
The pace of inclusion of new words has been increased as well, to the rate of about 4,000 per year. These will be added to the on-line database in quarterly installments. Readers will be treated to such words as "Bollywood," a blend of the names "Bombay" and "Hollywood", that refers to India's film industry; and "d'oh," an exclamation of frustration popularized by the animated television show The Simpsons, although the OED editors were able to trace its use back to the 1950s. Other words derive from technology, such as MP3, network appliance, and weblog, and new business jargon
, such as e-tailing (for on-line retailing). Simpson cautions, however, that the heavy influx of new words should not necessarily be construed as evidence that our society is any more linguistically inventive than in the past. "Every generation thinks it lives in the most creative and abundant period," he explained to James Eve, "but the truth is that we probably won't know for another 25 years what language was like in the year 2000." Simpson elaborated, "As far as the OED is concerned, there's certainly a peak [in coinages] in Shakespeare's time and then another at the end of the 19th century, but that may be more representative of the reading of OED contributors than of the actual changes in language itself." There are some societal changes, however, which have had an effect on the current state of the language. "It doesn't take so long for a new word, particularly a slang word, to find its way into print," he told Eve. "Literature has become far more demotic."
The OED’s small army of devoted readers continue to contribute quotations; the department currently receives about 200,000 a year. Nowadays, many of the submissions are made via e-mail. The millions of old word cards the OED has catalogued over the last century and a half, many of them handwritten, are still kept at OED’s offices in Oxford. Simpson told James Eve that he sometimes feels a little nostalgic when he looks through them. "In some ways it's a pity that so much editing and research is now done on computer. You can tell with the old scripts whether they date from the 1930s or the 1950s or whenever, and even to some extent what the writer was feeling that day: if their writing was a little bit hasty, or lazy. Sometimes they wrote little things on the corners. It's quite fascinating."
Simpson, who is considered an expert on English proverbs and slang, has published articles in Medium Aevum, English Today, and other lexicographical and linguistic periodicals. In 1982 he edited the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (now in its third edition), a work characterized as "very jolly" by Philip Howard. He also co-edited the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang (1992). Simpson is a member of the English Faculty at Oxford and of the Philological Society. In 1291 he became a Supernumerary
Fellow of Kellogg College, at Oxford, along with his colleague Edmund Wiener. In 1939 he received an honorary Doctor
of Letters from Australian National University
, in Canberra, for contributions to lexicography.
Neologisms have become a personal interest for Simpson. Philip Howard, who interviewed Simpson for The Times
(18 March 1989), observed, "In his back pocket he carries a tatty notebook in which he disconcerts you by jotting down instances of new or unusual usage."
team in Oxfordshire. Simpson has two children, Katharine Jane and Eleanor Grace.
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
and senior editor of the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
(OED). Simpson was co-editor of the second edition, which ran to 20 volumes published in 1989, a combination of the original text with several supplemental volumes that had followed. He also directed the conversion of the OED’s vast printed resources into a streamlined electronic database, bringing the entire second edition on-line in March 2000.
Simpson lectures widely on language, lexicography, and the research underway at the OED.
Early life
Simpson was born in CheltenhamCheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...
, Gloucestershire, the son of Robert Morris and Joan Margaret. He received a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
from the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
and a MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in medieval studies
Medieval studies
-Development:The term 'medieval studies' began to be adopted by academics in the opening decades of the twentieth century, initially in the titles of books like G. G. Coulton's Ten Medieval Studies , to emphasize a greater interdisciplinary approach to a historical subject...
from the University of Reading
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
and came to lexicography through studying English literature and philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, especially that of the medieval period
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
.
Joining The OED
In 1976 Simpson joined the editorial team of the OEDOxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
within the Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
. His first task was working on neologisms for a supplement to the OED. At this time, the process of compiling the dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
was essentially the same as it had been when it began in the 19th century. The bulk of the work consisted of the analysis of millions of index card
Index card
An index card consists of heavy paper stock cut to a standard size, used for recording and storing small amounts of discrete data. It was invented by Carl Linnaeus, around 1760....
s, each one containing a quotation as an example of a word's usage.
In 1981 Simpson was hired to work on the third supplement, which was published in 1982; the fourth followed in 1986. These added 69,300 entries and 527,000 quotations to the total. Dictionaries, however, need to be updated constantly to remain current, but adding yet another supplement was deemed awkward by the editors because it would require users to consult not only two but three separate alphabetical listings to find a word. The staff decided that the best solution was to merge the supplements with the original edition into a single, integrated compendium. Entries could be consolidated, duplicates deleted, and everything properly ordered and cross-referenced. The editors also realized that the traditional print method of compilation would be too cumbersome when dealing with such a mass of information, and that computers were not simply the best alternative, but perhaps the only means of assuring a future for the dictionary.
Work on the second edition was officially inaugurated in 1984; Edmund Weiner
Edmund Weiner
Edmund Weiner was co-editor of the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and Deputy Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary...
was appointed to be an editor, and Simpson joined him as soon as the supplement was completed, in 1986. The British division of IBM donated a 4341 mainframe computer
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
and other hardware, in addition to committing a small team of computer experts to manage the system. The University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
in Ontario, Canada
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
volunteered to design the database. More than 120 keyboarders
Typing
Typing is the process of inputting text into a device, such as a typewriter, cell phone, computer, or a calculator, by pressing keys on a keyboard. It can be distinguished from other means of input, such as the use of pointing devices like the computer mouse, and text input via speech...
were hired to input the entire text (350,000,000 characters plus accompanying computer code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
). The cost of the project reached $13.5 million, but met the five-year deadline.
When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. TIME magazine dubbed it "a scholarly Everest," and Richard Boston
Richard Boston
Richard Boston was an English journalist and author, he was a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist...
, writing for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
(24 March 1989), called it "one of the wonders of the world." The dictionary's size alone merits such encomiums: its 20 volumes contain 21,730 pages and weigh a total of 137 pounds. The text is about 60 million words long and includes 290,000 main entries (which is about 40,000 more than the first edition), definitions of about 600,000 word forms, and almost 2.5 million quotations.
As co-editor of the second edition, Simpson had specialized in tracking down new influences on language. He was responsible for vetting the 5,000 new words (and new senses of existing words) that were included in the second edition. The majority of these were derived from developments in science, business, medicine, and North American slang. Examples include "yuppification", "clone", "breakdancing", "ghetto blaster", "basket case", "credit union", "AIDS", "glasnost", "Fortune 500", "networking", and "nose job". As a result, the language of the second OED, Simpson explained to Herbert Mitgang of the New York Times (22 March 1989), "is not just the so-called King's English, or Queen's English, but the people's English."
As Chief Editor of the OED
In 1993 Simpson became the chief editor of the OED and is now managing the first complete revision of the dictionary since it was originally published. For this third edition, each word is being examined and revised to improve the accuracy of the definitionDefinition
A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term , or a type of thing. The term to be defined is the definiendum. A term may have many different senses or meanings...
s, derivation
Derivation (linguistics)
In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...
s, pronunciation
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
s, and historical quotation
Quotation
A quotation or quote is the repetition of one expression as part of another one, particularly when the quoted expression is well-known or explicitly attributed by citation to its original source, and it is indicated by quotation marks.A quotation can also refer to the repeated use of units of any...
s--a task requiring the efforts of more than 300 scholars, researchers, readers, and consultants. It is projected to cost about $55 million. As Simpson explained to James Eve for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(9 March 2000), "We think of it as the largest humanities research programme in the world."
Simpson, after becoming chief editor of the OED in 1993, brought the dictionary into the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
age with its online debut in 2000. "I think the OEDs first editor, James Murray, would have been quite pleased," Simpson remarked to James Eve. "He would have seen it as the obvious way for the dictionary to go. And in fact, the way that he structured the dictionary with its series of branches, nested senses, meanings and the way that the quotations are arranged converts very easily on to computer."
For the third edition, Simpson is directing the first major revision of the dictionary since its publication in 1933. Each entry is being reviewed in light of improved documentary evidence
Documentary evidence
Documentary evidence is any evidence introduced at a trial in the form of documents. Although this term is most widely understood to mean writings on paper , the term actually include any media by which information can be preserved...
and new developments in linguistic scholarship. For many words, earlier usages have been discovered. Words whose meaning have shifted since their inclusion, are being brought up to date. Historical notes, updated pronunciations, and lists of variant spellings will also be added. The end result is expected to double the overall length of the text. The style of the dictionary will also be changing slightly. The original text was more literary, with most of the quotations taken from novels, plays, and the like. The new edition, however, will reference all manner of printed resources, such as cookbooks, wills, technical manuals, specialist journals, and rock lyrics.
The pace of inclusion of new words has been increased as well, to the rate of about 4,000 per year. These will be added to the on-line database in quarterly installments. Readers will be treated to such words as "Bollywood," a blend of the names "Bombay" and "Hollywood", that refers to India's film industry; and "d'oh," an exclamation of frustration popularized by the animated television show The Simpsons, although the OED editors were able to trace its use back to the 1950s. Other words derive from technology, such as MP3, network appliance, and weblog, and new business jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
, such as e-tailing (for on-line retailing). Simpson cautions, however, that the heavy influx of new words should not necessarily be construed as evidence that our society is any more linguistically inventive than in the past. "Every generation thinks it lives in the most creative and abundant period," he explained to James Eve, "but the truth is that we probably won't know for another 25 years what language was like in the year 2000." Simpson elaborated, "As far as the OED is concerned, there's certainly a peak [in coinages] in Shakespeare's time and then another at the end of the 19th century, but that may be more representative of the reading of OED contributors than of the actual changes in language itself." There are some societal changes, however, which have had an effect on the current state of the language. "It doesn't take so long for a new word, particularly a slang word, to find its way into print," he told Eve. "Literature has become far more demotic."
The OED’s small army of devoted readers continue to contribute quotations; the department currently receives about 200,000 a year. Nowadays, many of the submissions are made via e-mail. The millions of old word cards the OED has catalogued over the last century and a half, many of them handwritten, are still kept at OED’s offices in Oxford. Simpson told James Eve that he sometimes feels a little nostalgic when he looks through them. "In some ways it's a pity that so much editing and research is now done on computer. You can tell with the old scripts whether they date from the 1930s or the 1950s or whenever, and even to some extent what the writer was feeling that day: if their writing was a little bit hasty, or lazy. Sometimes they wrote little things on the corners. It's quite fascinating."
Simpson, who is considered an expert on English proverbs and slang, has published articles in Medium Aevum, English Today, and other lexicographical and linguistic periodicals. In 1982 he edited the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (now in its third edition), a work characterized as "very jolly" by Philip Howard. He also co-edited the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang (1992). Simpson is a member of the English Faculty at Oxford and of the Philological Society. In 1291 he became a Supernumerary
Supernumerary
A Supernumerary is an additional member of an organization. A supernumerary is also a non-regular member of a staff, a member of the staff or an employee who works in a public office who is not part of the manpower complement...
Fellow of Kellogg College, at Oxford, along with his colleague Edmund Wiener. In 1939 he received an honorary Doctor
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
of Letters from Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
, in Canberra, for contributions to lexicography.
Neologisms have become a personal interest for Simpson. Philip Howard, who interviewed Simpson for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(18 March 1989), observed, "In his back pocket he carries a tatty notebook in which he disconcerts you by jotting down instances of new or unusual usage."
Personal life
In his spare time Simpson plays for a local village cricketVillage cricket
Village cricket is a term, sometimes pejorative, given to the playing of cricket in rural villages in England. Many villages have their own teams that play at varying levels of the English cricket pyramid....
team in Oxfordshire. Simpson has two children, Katharine Jane and Eleanor Grace.