Simpson, John

Job Title: Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary
College: Kellogg
Period/ Subject: Historical lexicography

Email address: john.simpson@ell.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests: Historical and modern lexicography, history of the English language, slang, proverbs, James Joyce’s world

Recent Publications:

2011 Co-editor James Joyce Online Notes (vol. 1, issue 1), including:

   "Marcella, the Midget Queen"
   "Captain Buller: that prodigious hit to square leg"
   "Some notes on the triple life of Thomas Goodwin Keohler" (with Eamonn Finn)
   "Basilicogrammate: the Egyptian royal secretary"
   "Contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality: jawbreakers and spelling bees"
   "All change at the Empire Palace"
   "The deleterious effect of copper sulphate on green peas"
   "Elster Grime and the Grand Old Opera"

2011 Introduction to Superstitions: omens, charms, cures 1787; Oxford: The Bodleian Library

2011 "Myler Keogh: Dublin's Pet Lamb", in James Joyce Broadsheet No. 88, February, 1/1-4

2010 "Will the real Dr Hy Franks please stand up?", in Dublin James Joyce Journal 3, 114-19

2010 Introduction to The First English Dictionary of Slang 1699; Oxford: The Bodleian Library

2009 "The Oxford English Dictionary: What does the future hold for historical lexicography?" in Silvia Bruti, Roberta Cella, and Marina Foschi Albert (eds.) Perspectives on Lexicography in Italy and Europe Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 55-78

2008 "Why is the OED so small?" in Serge Vanvolsem & Laura Lepschy (eds.) Nell'officina del dizionario: Atti del Convegno Internazionale organizzato dall'Istituto di Cultura Lussemburgo (Band 19: Romanische Sprachen und ihre Didaktik) ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart, 113-29

2008 "Burchfield, Robert William (1923-2004)", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition); Oxford: Oxford University Press

2007 Introduction to The First English Dictionary 1604: Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall; Oxford: The Bodleian Library

2004 "The OED and collaborative research into the history of English", in Anglia, 122, 2, 185-208

2004 "The Oxford English Dictionary Today" (with Edmund Weiner and Philip Durkin) in Transactions of the Philological Society, 102, 335-74

2003 "Reliable authority: tabloids, film, email, and speech as sources for dictionaries" in Jean Aitchison and Diana M. Lewis (eds.) New Media Language, 187-92; Routledge

2003 "The Revolution in English Lexicography" in R. R. K. Hartmann (ed.) Lexicography: Critical Concepts,1 148-60; London: Routledge

2002 "Afterword", in Robert Burchfield, The English Language, 175-87; Oxford University Press

Selected Earlier Publications: 

1992 The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang (with John Ayto); Oxford University Press, Oxford

1990 "English Lexicography after Johnson to 1945", in F. J. Hausmann et al. (eds.), Wörterbücher: Ein Internationales Handbuch zur Lexikographie, Volume 2, 1953-1966; Walter de Gruyter, Berlin

1989 Oxford English Dictionary (Co-Editor with Edmund Weiner), (Second Edition); Clarendon Press, Oxford

1982 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Other Information: John Simpson read English at the University of York and Medieval Studies at the University of Reading. He joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1976 and has been its Chief Editor since 1993. In 1999 he was awarded an honorary D. Litt. by the Australian National University for his ‘distinguished creative achievement as a scholar in lexicography’. He is a member of the Philological Society (where the idea of the Dictionary was first mooted in the 1850s), and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He edited the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (1982) and co-edited the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang (1992). His introductions to Robert Cawdrey's English dictionary (1604), B.E.'s Dictionary of the Canting Crew (1699), and Francis Grose's Popular Superstitions (1787) have been published by the Bodleian Library. He has recently become Co-editor of James Joyce Online Notes, a forum for the publication of documentary evidence that helps to elucidate the network of cross-references and allusions on which Joyce’s fiction is based.