I felt I could not allow the death of Robert Burchfield to go unremarked on this forum, where so many of us owe him so much.
From 1971 to 1984 he was Editor in Chief of the Oxford English Dictionaries, and contributed much to the modernisation of the works. He described the English language as "a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib."
After "retiring" he re-wrote Fowler's Modern English Usage and was responsible for the definitive edition published in 1996.
As a staunch defender of free speech he went to court to defend the OED's right to include pejorative definitions of the word "Jew", on the ground that the function of a dictionary is to describe language as it is, not as we may wish it to be.
From 1971 to 1984 he was Editor in Chief of the Oxford English Dictionaries, and contributed much to the modernisation of the works. He described the English language as "a monster accordion, stretchable at the whim of the editor, compressible ad lib."
After "retiring" he re-wrote Fowler's Modern English Usage and was responsible for the definitive edition published in 1996.
As a staunch defender of free speech he went to court to defend the OED's right to include pejorative definitions of the word "Jew", on the ground that the function of a dictionary is to describe language as it is, not as we may wish it to be.
