Tom McArthur | |
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Born | 23 August 1938 |
Died | 30 March 2020 (aged 81) |
Nationality | Scottish |
Education | MA, University of Glasgow, 1958; PhD, University of Edinburgh, 1977[1] |
Occupation(s) | linguist, expert on English as a world language, writer, editor |
Notable work | Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English; English Today; Worlds of Reference; Oxford Companion to the English Language; Oxford Guide to World English |
Spouse(s) | Feri Mottahedin (married 1963, died 1993); Jacqueline Lam (married 2001) |
Children | 3 |
Parents |
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Tom McArthur (23 August 1938 – 30 March 2020) was a Scottish linguist,[2] lexicographer, and the founding editor of English Today.[3][4] Among the many books he wrote and edited, he is best known for the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English,[5] the first thematic monolingual learner's dictionary, which complemented the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English by bringing together sets of words with related meanings,[6] Worlds of Reference,[7][8] as well as the Oxford Guide to World English (2002, paperback 2003).
McArthur's most notable work was The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992),[9] a 1200-page work with 95 contributors and 70 consultants, which was hailed by The Guardian as a "leviathan of accessible scholarship" and was listed on the Sunday Times bestseller list.[10] He published an abridged edition in 1996 and a concise edition in 1998. A second edition was published in 2018, co-edited with Jacqueline Lam McArthur and Lise Fontaine.[10][11]
McArthur also taught at the University of Exeter's Dictionary Research Centre,[10] which was established in 1984 by Reinhard Hartmann.[citation needed] In 1987 he collaborated with David Crystal to produce an 18-part radio version of a TV series The Story of English for BBC World Service.[10][12] and in 1997 he co-founded the Asian Association for Lexicography.[13] Earlier, he published books about Indian philosophy and the Bhagavad Gita,[14][15] and the languages of Scotland,[16] wrote unpublished novels,[17] served as an officer-instructor in the British Army,[13] taught in Sutton Coldfield and in Bombay Cathedral School, and reported for local newspapers.[10]
McArthur died aged 81 on 30 March 2020.[10]
my doctoral thesis 'The English word: a critical study of some aspects of lexicography and lexicology in the English language', approved at the University of Edinburgh in 1977 on the recommendation of the internal examiner David Abercrombie and the external examiner John Sinclair
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