Lexicographer takes break

Press, 30 December 1976, Page 8

Lexicographer takes break

pA Wellington An expatriate New Zealander who has made his name with words is on holiday in his homeland, away from the rigours of lexicography. Mr Robert Burchfield, chief editor of the English dictionlarv department at the Oxiford University Press, is paying his third visit to New Zealand since he left as a Rhodes Scholar in 1949. For the last 20 years he has been working in the dictionary department at the O.U.P. Mr Burchfield, who. was born in Wanganui, is taking) a rest from the lecturing and' speech-making for which he has become well known. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on / merican tele-1 vision after the publication off volume 1 of the supplement] to the Oxford English Die-; tionary.

The supplement will entail four volumes — two of which have been published — and

(will be complete within the (next six years.

It will add 50,000 new words to the 13-volume Oxford English Dictionary, which was completed in 1928. Mr Burchfield, as editor, takes responsibility for all the Oxford dictionaries, but. edits the supplement personally. ft is an exacting task, he says. His most recent publication — volume 2 of the supplement — was voted “Book of the Year” for 1976 in the United Kingdom. The “Sun)day Times” went as far as to, (call it the major work of (scholarship of the twentieth' I century.

The popularity of diction-) aries is growing, says Mr Burchfield. The Concise Oxford Did-1 tionarv normally sells about. 400,000 copies annually, but) with a sixth edition released) last July, he anticipates that) sales in the year to July, 1977.) will be 600,000.