Robert William Burchfield
CNZM
The New Zealand Order of Merit is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, "for those persons who in any field of endeavour, have re ...
,
CBE (27 January 1923 – 5 July 2004) was a
lexicographer, scholar, and writer, who edited the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
'' for thirty years to 1986, and was chief editor from 1971.
Education and career
Born in
Whanganui,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
, he studied at
Wanganui Technical College and
Victoria University in
Wellington
Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by ...
. After war service in the
Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery, he graduated MA from Wellington in 1948 and won a
Rhodes Scholarship to
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...
,
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, in England, where he was tutored by
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univer ...
. He became a Fellow of Magdalen and lecturer in English straight after graduating (1952–53), subsequently moving colleges to
Christ Church (1953–57) and
St Peter's (1955–79). Through
C. T. Onions
Charles Talbut Onions (C. T. Onions) (10 September 1873 – 8 January 1965) was an English grammarian and lexicographer and the fourth editor of the ''Oxford English Dictionary''.
Life
Onions was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, Birming ...
, the Magdalen librarian, Burchfield assisted in editing one of Onions's projects, the ''Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology''. His preparation of an edition of the ''
Ormulum'' was supervised by
J. R. R. Tolkien.
[''Oxford English Dictionary'' website entry for Robert Burchfield](_blank)
including ''The Independents obituary.
Onions recommended him to
Dan Davin as editor of the second ''Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary'', on which he worked from 1957 to 1986. He re-established the network of volunteer readers sending in records of words that had helped to create the original OED but had been allowed to fall away.
In 2004, it emerged that Burchfield's second supplement had removed a large number of words that were present in the earlier 1933 supplement edited by Onions and William Craigie, which Burchfield's second supplement incorporated. Four years later the full nature of his treatment of foreign words was shown: he deleted 17 per cent of the foreign
loan words and words from regional forms of English; and his coverage was not as extensive as his predecessors, especially Onions, who included 45 per cent more loanwords and
World Englishes. In 2012, a book documented Burchfield's work and showed that many of the omitted words had
only a single recorded usage, but their removal ran against both what was thought to be the established OED editorial practice and a perception that he had opened up the dictionary to "World English". The author of the book concerned, Sarah Ogilvie, complained that people were unfairly judging Burchfield and that her coverage had been misleadingly reported in the media.
Burchfield also participated in a 1980s
BBC committee that monitored compliance with the broadcaster's policy of using
received pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geo ...
in newscasting, before that policy was abandoned in 1989 in favor of "using announcers and newsreaders with a more representative range of accents."
In retirement, he produced a controversial new edition, substantially rewritten and less
prescriptivist, of ''
Fowler's Modern English Usage'', the long-established
style guide
A style guide or manual of style is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. It is often called a style sheet, although that term also has multiple other meanings. The standards can be applied either for gene ...
by
Henry Watson Fowler.
He died in
Abingdon-on-Thames
Abingdon-on-Thames ( ), commonly known as Abingdon, is a historic market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England, on the River Thames. Historically the county town of Berkshire, since 1974 Abingdon has been ...
at 81, in 2004. He married twice and had three children.
Selected works
*''Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary'', 4 vols, 1972–1986
*''The Spoken Word'', 1981
*''The English Language'', 1985
*''Studies in Lexicography'', 1987
*''Unlocking the English Language'', 1989
*''
The Cambridge History of the English Language
''The Cambridge History of the English Language'' is a six volume history of English published between 1992 and 2001. The general editor was Richard Hogg.
* Volume 1, The Beginnings to 1066, Richard Hogg, ed.
* Volume 2, 1066–1476, Norma ...
, Vol. 5: English in Britain and Overseas'', 1994
* Editor, ''Fowler's Modern English Usage'', Revised Edition, 1998
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burchfield, Robert
1923 births
2004 deaths
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
New Zealand lexicographers
British lexicographers
Etymologists
New Zealand Rhodes Scholars
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford
Fellows of St Peter's College, Oxford
Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford
Chief editors of the Oxford English Dictionary
New Zealand expatriates in England
New Zealand Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit
New Zealand military personnel of World War II
20th-century lexicographers