Today's Dictionary Editors

Penny Silva, Director, OED
Director of Editorial Projects for Oxford English Dictionary, Penny was born in Cape Town and raised in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (of English, Irish, and Dutch descent). With a background in history and linguistics, she was formerly Director of the Dictionary Unit for South African English at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, and was managing editor of the Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles (1996). As a child she was fascinated by runes and other secret languages. She speaks Afrikaans, and has studied Xhosa (Nelson Mandela's first language).

John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary
John was appointed Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1993, and now presides over the world's largest dictionary programme, which involves over 300 editorial staff and advisers. He edited (with Edmund Weiner) the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, published to great acclaim in 1989. He is a member of the English Faculty at Oxford and of the Philological Society (where the idea of the Dictionary was first mooted in the 1850s), and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He is a world expert on proverbs and slang, and has edited dictionaries on both these subjects for Oxford University Press; he regularly lectures and broadcasts on the English language and on the Dictionary. John's other interests include some that are more resistant to computerization, such as village cricket.

Edmund Weiner, Deputy Chief Editor, OED
Edmund was Co-Editor with John Simpson of the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and is now Deputy Chief Editor. He is a member of the English Faculty at Oxford, and a Fellow of Kellogg College. He has a particular responsibility for the linguistic aspects of the dictionary text, as well as for words borrowed from unfamiliar languages. He invented a phonetic alphabet at the age of eleven and spent his teens collecting alphabets, trying to teach himself languages, or inventing his own, inspired by the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Philip Durkin, Principal Etymologist, OED
After studying English historical philology at Oxford and pursuing research on late Middle English, Philip became manager of the OED's team of specialist etymology editors, responsible for documentation on the history and development of words. His passion is for tracing the developments in form and sense which English words have undergone through the centuries, and identifying the influences (both linguistic and cultural) which have helped shape the modern vocabulary of English.

Jesse Sheidlower, Principal Editor, OED (North America)
Born in New York, Jesse studied English historical linguistics at the University of Chicago and did graduate work at Trinity College, Cambridge in the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic. The OED recruited him from Random House, where he had been running the new-words and citation-gathering programmes. His experience in historical lexicography comes from the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, of which he was project editor. He is now responsible for overseeing the Oxford English Dictionary North American Reading Program and for contributing new and revised American material to the current full-scale revision of the dictionary.

Jeremy Marshall, Associate Editor, OED with special responsibility for the Oxford Word and Language Service

Jeremy worked in a chemistry lab and at a museum insect collection before becoming an assistant editor for the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and then a science editor on the OED. He has a particular interest in the history of biological vocabulary, and also oversees the work of the Oxford Word and Language Service. As a schoolboy he won a competition in the Observer magazine making up definitions for non-existent words. In his spare time he sings, writes Scottish country dances, and tries unsuccessfully not to accumulate books.

Mark Dunn, Senior Editor, OED Online
Mark was raised in Blackpool, Lancashire. He studied Maths at Balliol College, Oxford, and fell into lexicography after opening an issue of New Scientist at a job advertisement for a science editor at the OED. He now works chiefly on the OED's web site, oed.com. In his spare time he writes science fiction, publishing his first story last year. He became fascinated by words when he realized that his name was an anagram of "Drunk Man"!

Graeme Diamond, Senior Assistant Editor (New Words), OED
Graeme has worked at Oxford University Press for four years. He has responsibility for researching, drafting, and editing dictionary entries for new English words and meanings. He compiles the important ‘what’s new’ list for the department, which can include anything from the latest business jargon to the hottest new words on the street.

Judy Pearsall, Publishing Manager
Brought up in York, Judy joined the Dictionary Department in 1989, where she worked initially on collecting new words for the OED. Since then she has edited the ground-breaking New Oxford Dictionary of English. Outside work, Judy likes all the usual things - travel, cinema, swimming, reading, music, good food. However, as she has a young family, most of her
spare time at the moment is spent on the rather more prosaic aspects of (blissful) domestic life.

Sara Hawker, Project Editor
Born in Birmingham, Sara took a degree in English at Oxford and studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute in London. She spent several years broadening her knowledge of vernacular English while working in Oxford restaurants before joining Oxford English Dictionaries in 1990. Sara's main interests include travelling to hot countries, modern fiction, cinema, and fashion.

Catherine Soanes, Project Editor
Catherine is particularly interested in new words and enjoys scouring novels, newspapers, and Hello! magazine for them. Part of the team who worked on the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, she has also edited the Oxford Compact English Dictionary and a new edition of the Pocket Oxford Dictionary. Outside lexicography, her main interest is travelling to warm sunny places with impressive architecture or archaeological remains.

Angus Stevenson, Project Editor
Angus joined Oxford University Press in 1988, to work on the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. He has worked on a range of Oxford dictionaries, including the Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th edition. Angus was born in Essex, of Scottish parents. ‘It was probably an early awareness of the difference between the ways people spoke at home and outside that gave rise to my interest in language. My parents would sometimes say that I was "peely-wally" or that a table was "shoogly", while boys at school would use the strange form of address "wotcher".' He plays lead guitar in a group called The Relationships.

Maurice Waite, Project Editor
Maurice studied linguistics, German, and Swahili before joining OUP in 1984. He worked on English learners' dictionaries, then German dictionaries, before moving to the English Dictionaries Department. ‘I enjoy making use of my lexicographical skills in my hobbies of skiing, boating, printing, and music, although I try not to take my work home. However at a very young age my son observed: "Look, a daddy-long-legs. Also called: crane fly", so I may not be succeeding!’