![]() ![]() "We look at them as scientists - how old they are, which part of the world they're used in, why they change senses at particular times." On his beginnings at the OED "I just think, 'Well, that's an interesting point. "We don't try and say, 'This is right, this is wrong,'" said Simpson.ĭoes he get het up if, say, "criteria" is used in the singular? Not really. While some recall dictionaries as bastions of proper usage, bulwarks of correct English or simply handy ways to resolve arguments, their chief job for many decades has been simply to record what happens to language. Over the past 40 years, it's an attitude Simpson - and the OED - has exemplified. ![]() "I'm quite happy with anything that happens to a language," Simpson said. Surprisingly, John Simpson - lexicographer, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire and, for 20 years, chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary - is no purist. ![]()
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