An Exit Interview With the Man Who Transformed the Oxford English Dictionary

By Katy Steinmetz Time - April 23, 2013

Photo - Courtesy of Oxford University Press

John Simpson, the seventh chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, is retiring after 20 years at the helm.

In 1857, the Oxford English Dictionary was just a sparkle in the eyes of some English gents who thought the current dictionaries weren’t up to snuff. Today, the OED is a vast, searchable database that tells the story of human history through a constantly expanding survey of the words we use. And the man who has led this remarkable print-to-digital transformation days is retiring.
John Simpson began working at OED in 1976. The young index-card-shuffling assistant demonstrated a real way with words: in 1993, he was named Chief Editor—only the seventh in the dictionary’s long and storied  history. On Wednesday, the 60-year-old announced that he would, in six months time, close the book on his career. TIME talked to the London-based lexicographer about how technology changed the dictionary business, how his profession is misunderstood, and what the word magazine has to do with the Spanish Armada.
So how are you feeling about retiring?
It’s going to be an enormous change. The exciting thing with vocabulary is that you’re dealing with something completely different with every word you do. There’s always some historical or social aspect that you need to come to grips with, making the entry whole together. I’ve been able to maintain a childish fascination with it for almost 40 years.
Do you find that people have common misconceptions about your work?
Oh, yes. When they come to the department, people are expecting our beards to be scratching the ground and that we’ll be talking about very early Scandinavian sound changes. It’s hardly the case. To be a historical lexicographer, you’ve got to be interested a little bit in everything.
How has the job changed during your time there?
When you approach a word, you have a feeling for what the end product ought to look like. Each word is a different sort of poem. The smaller entries are like Shakespearean sonnets — the larger ones, more like Joyce’s Ulysses. What we’re going to realize more and more, as we work with the dictionary on the computer, is that we’re not really looking at individual words. Individual words are just part of the mosaic of language. With the networks we’re able to build up, you’re able to see the connection much more clearly than you could in the old days

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