Robert William Burchfield CNZM,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(27 January 1923 – 5 July 2004) was a

lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...

, scholar, and writer, who edited the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

'' for thirty years to 1986, and was chief editor from 1971.

Education and career

Born in

Whanganui Whanganui, also spelt Wanganui, is a city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest navigable waterway. Whanganui is ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, he studied at Wanganui Technical College and

Victoria University Victoria University may refer to: * Victoria University (Australia), a public research university in Melbourne, Australia * Victoria University, Toronto, a constituent college of the federal University of Toronto in Canada * Victoria University of ...

Wellington Wellington 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 third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

. After war service in the

Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery The Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery is the artillery regiment of the New Zealand Army. It is effectively a military administrative corps, and can comprise multiple component regiments. This nomenclature stems from its heritage as an of ...

, he graduated MA from Wellington in 1948 and won a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...

Magdalen College Magdalen College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and one of the strongest academically, se ...

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, in England, where he was tutored by

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...

. 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, 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 The ''Ormulum'' or ''Orrmulum'' is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by an Augustinian canon named Orrm (or Orrmin) and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonemic o ...

'' was supervised by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

.''Oxford English Dictionary'' website entry for Robert Burchfield
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 word A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing ...

s 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 World Englishes is a term for emerging localized or Indigenous language, indigenized varieties of English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States. The study of World English ...

. 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 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

committee that monitored compliance with the broadcaster's policy of using

received pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...

in newscasting, before that policy was abandoned in 1989 in favor of "using announcers and newsreaders with a more representative range of accents." In 1994 the

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded Burchfield its annual

Shakespeare Prize The Shakespeare Prize was an annual prize for writing or performance awarded to a British citizen by the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation. First given by Alfred Toepfer in 1937 as an expression of his Anglophilia in the face of tense internatio ...

in recognition of his life's work. In retirement, he produced a controversial new edition, substantially rewritten and less

prescriptivist Linguistic prescription is the establishment of rules defining publicly preferred usage of language, including rules of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc. Linguistic prescriptivism may aim to establish a standard language, teach w ...

, of ''

Fowler's Modern English Usage ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by H. W. Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage and writing. It covers a wide range of topics that relate to usage, including: plurals, nouns, verbs, punctuation, case ...

'', the long-established

style guide A style guide is a set of standards for the writing, formatting, and design of documents. A book-length style guide is often called a style manual or a manual of style. A short style guide, typically ranging from several to several dozen page ...

Henry Watson Fowler Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, Lexicography, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' and his wor ...

. He lived for many years in

Sutton Courtenay Sutton Courtenay is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire, England. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames south of Abingdon-on-Thames and northwest of Didcot. The 2021 census recorded th ...

, and died in

Abingdon-on-Thames Abingdon-on-Thames ( ), commonly known as Abingdon, is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Thames in the Vale of the White Horse district of Oxfordshire, England. The Historic counties of England, historic county town of Berksh ...

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, 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