David Crystal

how to introduce David crystal professor David crystal FBA OBE or probably should be the other way round whichever David crystal is undoubtedly one of the foremost linguist ditions in the world today and the preeminent expert on the history development and usage of the English language his OBE perhaps uniquely was for services to the English language he has made numerous radio and television programmes including the BBC's story of English series he has been president or patron of numerous language related organizations including the International Association for the teaching of English as a foreign language following his early years as a research student at UCL working with Randolph quirk on the survey of English usage project he has taught at several and lectured at scores of universities around the world when The Globe Theatre bravely decided to put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet in authentic Elizabethan pronunciation in 2004 it was David crystal naturally who they turned to as their language consultant underpinning these activities David has published around a hundred books on phonetics and phonology on language teaching language death and lexicography on grammar and stylistics on the language of the internet and on English as a global language from a proprietorial Cambridge standpoint and celebrating yet another anniversary it is exactly 40 years since his book prosodic systems and intonation in English inaugurated the press's flagship academic series Cambridge studies in linguistics and it was in that same year 1969 that David became editor of the presses flagship cereal Journal of linguistics but perhaps most significantly of all and most appropriately for someone with so encyclopedic a range of interests David is the author of two of the most respected and widely used reference books on the subject of language the cambridge encyclopedia of language and the cambridge encyclopedia of the english language combined sales to date four hundred and seventy five thousand copies and if that weren't enough in 1990 he edited the cambridge encyclopedia whose entries range from the a-bomb to the zygote all that and he also speaks Welsh ladies and gentlemen David crystal well nah Swiper indeed on anniversaries as a general encyclopedia editor I was for many years professionally interested in anniversaries and the events that give rise to them anniversaries as it were helped pay the mortgage in that same capacity I also learnt to be deeply suspicious of them I once edited a book called on this day the sort of listing that you find in many a newspaper or magazine recording events which happened on a particular day Andy Brown referred to two or three earlier on my editorial team collected information relating to some 15,000 supposed anniversaries as we began the process of checking we found that about a half of these had to be jettisoned either because of conflicting and unverifiable claims or because the data was unverifiable in principle anniversaries aren't as easy to celebrate as you might think take the apparently simple aim to celebrate the year in which if you're interested in beginnings shajahan began to build the Taj Mahal or if endings the year in which the building was completed for the first if you consult various reference books you have the choice of sixteen thirty sixteen thirty one and sixteen thirty-two if you date from the death of Shah Jahan's wife you will go for sixteen thirty one if you date from receipt of planning permission as it were you will go for 1632 or around sixteen thirty two as Encyclopedia Britannica puts it being precise even in its imprecision as for completion the mausoleum was finished by about 1643 the mosque wall and Gateway by about 1649 and the rest of the complex including the stables the guardhouse and the other structures some five years later shah jahan would have given his builders their final stage payment as it were in 1654 but the main project was finished some 10 years earlier so is 2009 the three hundred and sixtieth anniversary of the building of the Taj Mahal or not you might think people are in a better situation at least they must be born or died on a particular day well not necessarily depending upon which book you read Louis Armstrong was born either on the 4th of July 1900 as he repeatedly claimed himself throughout his life or the 4th of August 1919 ATS having unearthed a baptism certificate now a baptismal record is no proof of birth of course though we know that from the famous case of Shakespeare born when exactly the register of Holy Trinity Church in chicken Stratford records the baptism of William the first son of John Shakespeare gooje must Phineas Johannes Shakespeare on the 26th of April 1560 for now the custom of celebrating the birthday on the 23rd really began in the 18th century fostered probably by a natural desire on the part of most people to see England's greatest dramatic poet celebrated with the unassociated with the feast day of st. George England's patron saint so when was the birth the practice of Elizabethan England as specified in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer was this the pastor's and curates shall off tide Mohnish the people that they defer not the baptism of infants any longer than the Sunday or other holy day next after the child be born unless upon a great and reasonable cause declared to the curate and by him approved in 1564 the 23rd was a Sunday and the main holy day in April st. Mark's Day followed soon after on the 25th so if the parents were following the usual practice a child born on the 23rd would be baptized at the latest by the twenty-fifth so Phi the 26th well maybe there was a great and reasonable cause to delay things maybe the shakespeare's were influenced by the widespread superstition that st. Mark's Day was unlucky there is no evidence to suggest any of these things for definite and without such evidence the tradition stands end of story now beginning of story for the 23rd of April in 1564 was not the same as the 23rd of April today by the mid 16th century the Julian calendar had fallen 10 days behind the solar year so in 1582 Pope Gregory the 13th introduced the Gregorian calendar which we follow today most European countries immediately made the change Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain had Thursday the 4th of October 1582 immediately followed by Friday the 15th of October but the then anti papal England rejected the idea and didn't catch up until 1752 when September the 2nd was immediately followed by September the 14th this means that in 1564 in England the date referred to then as the 23rd of April corresponds to what would today call the 3rd of May there should be 2 birthday weekend's in stratford-upon-avon each year it seems to me now the switch from old-style to new style dates is the bane of the wannabe anniversaire n' you have to know what is going on country by country in Russia for example the Gregorian calendar was not introduced until the 14th of February 1918 new style we all know there was an october revolution in 1917 actually it wasn't in Gregorian terms it began on the 7th of November new-style 25th of october old-style accounts can get quite confusing if you aren't aware of the date change one reference book tells you that William the 3rd arrived in England on the 5th of November another tells you that he left the Netherlands on the 11th of November the 1st is new style the 2nd is old style and you have to allow for the situation where two people die on the same date but not on the same day Shakespeare and Cervantes are both credited with the 23rd of April 1616 but Cervantes died Gregorian while Shakespeare died Julian Cervantes would have looked in vain for Shakespeare as he arrived before the pearly gates if he had asked st. Peter the records would show that Shakespeare was not expected to arrive for another ten days so I have a right to be suspicious of anniversaries but not to this extent BMJ bans anniversaries we promised our readers no more boring anniversaries that was the headline in the British Medical Journal Webb site at the end of 1998 the editor richard smith went on I have no idea what accent to use for the editor of the BMJ shall I use a Scottish one it seems appropriate somehow after a launching of anniversaries in 1998 and with a prospect of the mother of all anniversaries causing civilization to grind to a halt in 2000 the BMJ is declaring 1999 and almost anniversary free year because of popular demand Christmas will be retained please do not contact us about the anniversary of your favorite institution invention or person and we will call you warming to his scene and reflecting that the 1900s had been called the decade of the brain richard smith also banned days weeks years and decades devoted to different diseases or age groups commenting that they are a boring device invented by public relations companies to hijack public attention I can well understand the editors frustration that year his journal had acknowledged 50 years of the National Health Service 150 years of the Public Health Act 50 years since the first injection of cortisone a hundred and seventy-five years of the Lancet and many many more events he had had enough anniversaries can silt up journals he complained as he considered the possibilities we could celebrate the 5th 10th 15th 20th 2015 17 800 hundred and 50 of 175 200 250 and 500 anniversaries and so on forever of the birth death and year of great achievement of every individual institution and general and of every government Act important medical development and great paper and so on and the Knighton and by definition this is cumulative so if we don't give up marking anniversaries will be over found already we dread the day when the BMJ will be filled with nothing but obituaries but anniversaries might get there first the consequence would be that the journal would be living permanently in the past our cry for 1999 is let the news be new as a consequence the readership of the BMJ was not reminded that 1999 was the 40th anniversary of the contraceptive pill in Britain and the 50th anniversary of a very famous BMJ paper I kid you not on a study of circumcision called the fate of the foreskin the editorial elicited three online responses the first was rather clever in which case said the writer you won't be interested to know that on June the 27th 1999 Moorfields Eye Hospital will be celebrating a hundred years at its current site in City Road in London that was from the public relations officer at Moorfields Eye Hospital never want to miss an opportunity the second response warmly congratulated the editor while inviting readers of BMJ to peer-review the first ever conducted virtual medical examination of Santa Claus one got the impression that the editor wasn't being taken entirely seriously don't you think and the third response under the heading be MJ's Trojan horse made the germane observation to ban all anniversaries in 1999 will have some unforeseen impact on the contents of the BMJ in the next millennium I suggest to consider that in 2009 you will have to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this decision well it is now 2009 and an opportune moment to reflect on the consequences for the BMJ it was a low only almost two years to the day later the journal was celebrating again with an article on home made ophthalmoscope s-- paying a fifty one hundred and fiftieth year tribute to Helmholtz and the practice soon built up speed so that by the anniversary of Smith's editorial it was as if the ban had never happened Roger Jones the editor in 2007 began his editorial on the future of the medical profession with the words this year marks the hundred and seventy fifth anniversary of the BMA the 60th anniversary of the World Health Organization in 2008 was a honeypot for medical anniversaire ins as was the 60th anniversary of the National Health Service what does the future hold for the NHS at sixty asked Rudolf climb in another editorial there is I think something impressive magical almost when an organization manages to celebrate a cluster of anniversaries at the same time I am here to celebrate Cambridge University presses four hundred and twenty fifth anniversary as you know also the four hundred and seventy fifth anniversary of the receiving of its Royal Charter as you heard a few moments ago also the 60th anniversary of the presses New York office also the 40th anniversary of the presses Australia office also the 20th anniversary of the presses Brazil office also the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of William Pitt the Younger whose name is recalled in the Pitt building the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin 150th anniversary of publication of the origin of the species sorry and throw in the 800th anniversary of the University and we are dealing with nine related anniversaries in a single year nine in a single year this cannot be coincidence there has to be someone within the organization who has been planning these things and moreover throughout the centuries somewhere within the press probably deep within the printing house is a place known only to a select few where a fraternity of editors meet who have the authority to decide see you P anniversary's knowledge that is passed on from generation to generation a sort of publishers Da Vinci Code thanks to my linguistic training I can reveal here for the first time this evening that I have in fact cracked this code The Da Vinci Code turns out to be more than just an analogy the key is to use gematria the system in which numerical values are assigned to letters of the alphabet you know the system a equals 1 B equals 2 C equals 3 and so on until you get to Zed equaling 26 identical values in words or values separated by a hundred in apparently unrelated names are considered to be of the highest mystical significance the total for Cambridge is 62 the total for DaVinci is 62 the total for Stephen borne is 162 add all the letter values up in the phrase cambridge university press and you get 303 add all the letters up in the phrase Priory of Zion whose role in The Da Vinci Code was critical that's a hundred and seventy nine then add DaVinci twice 262s is 124 and you get three hundred and three it it is more than my life is worth to say more I swear I saw an albino monk in the Edinburgh building in the Edinburgh building this very afternoon I'm sure I saw him in all of this the focus as the word anniversary suggests is on years anniversaries were called year days ye are SDR on mind days yamunda in Old English days on which one is minded of a birth or death the Latin word aniversario s' meaning returning yearly is not recorded until 12:30 when it's used first as an adjective and not until 1550 - as a noun according to the dictionary that the other organization produces it is an ecclesiastical term used with reference to Saints days later still anniversary is the celebration that takes place on a particular day the word was also used to refer to actual events or objects which identify an annual observance such as a commemorative activity or a publication thomas dekker in 1612 talked about chanting anthems anniversaries and dirges Robert Southey in 1829 refers to a yearly published review as an anniversary what today we'd call an annual I suppose as in Christmas annual a rare use of a verb to anniversary has been noted in the 19th century and the term I used a little while ago Anna Vissarion is not yet recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary though it has been used for some time especially in American English to refer to someone who celebrates an anniversary in particular anniversary anniversary ins our auditors or keynote speakers at annual celebratory gatherings such as college fraternity sorority occasions the Hazrat eye has retained its etymological emphasis on years but the time reference of the event being celebrated often narrows we remember years and dates obviously but also days with variable dates like Martin Luther King Day for instance we remember months Scout anniversary month for instance we remember weeks NHS anniversary week we remember hours the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month we remember minutes a memorial silence at 8:46 a.m. New York time on the 11th of September we even remember seconds as when 1999 became 2000 the term can also be broadened above a year though this is less usual you don't usually find people celebrating two-year periods or three year periods so you do get the occasional biennial and triennial but decades are common enough US Naval Aviation celebrated a diamond anniversary decade between 1981 and 1990 and we're in the second year of an anniversary decade right now the Luther decade remembering the period from September 15 Oh 8 when Luther arrived in Wittenberg to 1517 when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church there most people see anniversaries as being of purely personal interest hence the many gift ideas such as the lists of materials which symbolize major wedding anniversaries or an anniversary edition of a newspaper on a birthday today various technologies can help you remember that there is an anniversary last year saw the launch of the eye days for the iPhone and iPod Touch the application keeps track of all the birthdays and anniversaries in a user's contact list listing forthcoming events by age name or event type you can press a celebrate button for each contact and that brings up a pop-up screen supporting email and gift links on Amazon and if that isn't enough there's a proposal now to develop a remember ring 24 hours before a special day begins a hot spot on the rings interior would begin to warm up to a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 10 seconds and in case that didn't do the trick the ring would continue to warm up every hour on the hour all day long only the most pain insensitive individual would forget their wedding anniversary under such circumstances it seems to me in the USA a new trend was identified in 2008 the celebration vacation American families are hitting the road to mark lights special occasions said a report and followed this up with the news that in 2009 Walt Disney Parks and Resorts were letting people in for free on their birthday in the UK rather more traditionally there's an anniversaries office at Buckingham Palace which arranges congratulatory messages from the monarch to mark a hundred birthdays and 60th wedding anniversaries something that's happened since 1917 in fact it's more than just a hundred and sixty cards are sent to those celebrating their hundred and hundred and fifth day and every year thereafter we should be so lucky and to those celebrating their 60th 65th and 70th wedding anniversaries and every year thereafter it's the pensions service that informs the anniversaries office of birthdays for recipients of UK state pensions but data privacy factors mean but there's no automatic means of alerting the office for wedding anniversaries if you want a card sent to someone you have to make an application yourself and well in advance different countries do different things perhaps as something to learn from Germany like Britain the federal president congratulates people on reaching their centenary their hundred and fifth and all succeeding birthdays and also couples on the 65th seventy 70th and 75th wedding anniversary but he also accompanies the message with a small financial gift imagine the excitement moreover at the President's request the federal at the parents request the Federal President may act as honorary Godfather to a family's 7th or subsequent child but only to one child in the family once accepted the president issues the parents with a certificate and a gift currently five hundred euros according to the Bundys presidents website federal presidents have become godfather to over 72,000 children in Germany since 1949 mr. Brown eat your heart out do you want mr. brownish a godfather sorry that isn't in the script that is not in the script sorry sorry why do the Germans do this the president's office explains in becoming a child's godparent the federal president is highlighting the state special responsibility for the welfare of large families as well as the importance of the family and children to the community as a whole the intention is also to focus attention on the problems of large families finding suitable accommodations for instance and encourage cities and local communities to offer help and support another purpose is to raise the social status of families with a large number of children clearly the recognition of anniversaries is being motivated by other factors than the personal and this can also be seen from the okto website announcing the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University it says in marking the year we aim to strike a balance between academic achievement and celebration respect the past celebrate the present and leave a legacy for the future we are keen to ensure the many of the ideas and plans for the 800th anniversary provide a springboard for the future starting something fresh that will grow in years to come that captures it well the anniversary provides an opportunity for fresh thinking it motivates people to reflect on how things have gone with respect to their topic of interest and where they want to go and there is always somewhere else to go for is there any subject in the world not worth revisiting but any renewal of connection costs time energy and money and there are hundreds of anniversaries competing for our attention at any one time I can see why Richard Smith saw anniversaries as a boring device invented by public relations companies to hijack public attention but hijacking public attention is precisely what anniversaries are all about and when the domain being anniversary is one which is close to your heart the activity is by no means boring the social role of anniversaries is well illustrated in South Africa by the decision of its government to mark major anniversaries in the history of the struggle towards democracy on the 8th of March 2006 they launched the 50th anniversary of the Women's Antipas march to the Union Buildings a launch which coincided with International Women's Day that year a raft of anniversaries was commemorated including the centenary of the Bambaataa rebellion the 30th anniversary of the Soweto uprisings the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution and the 50th anniversary of the treason trial in a country deeply concerned to shape a new historical ethic the focus on anniversaries is entirely understandable as the American Spectator once put it anniversary community anniversary commemorations are a luxury a way to and to add meaning and perspective to peaceful time the economic role of anniversaries is well illustrated by the way charities operate anniversary celebrations can draw attention and dollars reads a headline in the US chronicle of philanthropy as an example they report the decision of the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council to mark its 20th year of operations with a special dinner to start the charities first capital campaign they invited the African American character actor Danny Glover to give a talk the dinner raised a hundred and twenty thousand dollars more than double the amount of past events and the group eventually completed its 2.5 million dollar campaign people didn't realize we'd been around that long said the group's executive director stressing the anniversary made them aware that this was an organization with a track record and it was not brand new at a more commercial level many companies recognize employee anniversaries as an important way of fostering commitment in an article in the Silicon Valley online business journal Bob Nelson author of 1001 ways to reward employees affirms celebrating anniversaries is an important way to acknowledge a relationship between a company and an individual although such rewards recognize tenure rather than specific behavior or accomplishments having loyal committed employees is important to companies how you recognize the loyalty of course varies greatly the giving of clocks and watches is common symbolizing the passing of time or watches with a difference at Wilson learning corporation based near Minneapolis each new employee after passing a three-month probationary period is given as a reminder always to have fun working for the company a Mickey Mouse watch on the 10th anniversary the employee is given a gold Mickey Mouse watch I have mentioned this story to several hard-nosed academics and every time their face displays a look which I can only describe as supercilious Envy I can't see my VC doing that said one rather sadly that would be the day wouldn't it it's remarkable how many contexts attribute significance to anniversaries and notwithstanding the public scorn most people are realists economic commentator Samuel Britten observes anniversaries of people's deaths or births are artificial Affairs there's no more reason to play the music of Mozart 250 years after he was born than there was after 249 years or will be after 251 years but he nonetheless concludes given the media fixation on such anniversaries we might as well take advantage of them to call attention to ideas which may be otherwise overlooked are there memories left that are safe from the clutches of phony anniversaries Guardian journalist WJ Weatherby and yet when we start to explore them it is rare to find an anniversary that is truly phony that is of no value to anyone certainly there are anniversary sites which many people would find strange one site I found for example asks for volunteers so that people who have had successful bariatric surgery weight-loss surgery can receive a congratulatory message on the anniversary of their operation well done for losing weight a year ago but the site is very popular and plainly performs a useful therapeutic function is it worth having a site which celebrates the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street and the arrival on our television screens of the first Muppets I have yet to meet an academic who thinks that's a bad thing evidently we have a fascination with anniversaries it seems we cannot have enough of them the frequency with which and on this day column appears in newspapers or websites illustrates the perennial interest in the genre book collections of such dates appear and have to have done for over a century with such names as a dictionary of dates W and our chambers publish their book of days in two volumes over 1600 pages in 1866 the book sold extremely well and went through several editions modern books sell similarly there seems to be a universal curiosity to find out about the events that happen throughout history on a significant day such as one's birthday some people set great store by them all organizations do otherwise we wouldn't be here today if it were otherwise it's partly the pleasure of coincidence everyone is intrigued by coincidences and especially by events which are time related such as when someone is born or dies on the same day as in the supposed case of Shakespeare for others it's just an intriguing or jocular conversation point people seem quite impressed by the fact that I share my birthday the 6th of July with rock-and-roll star Bill Haley but it is a selective and fragile interest I get a different reaction when it emerges I also share my day with george w bush whenever the reason all 366 days of the conventional year are treated with considerable respect 367 even if you recall february the 30th an extra leap day added to Sweden's Julian calendar in 1712 to resolve dating discrepancies Simon Dennison the editor of British archaeology wrote an opinion piece in 2001 which he called moving beyond the anniversary cult he echoed the BMJ editor in his opening a new year a new set of anniversaries that strange phenomenon so beloved of diary manufacturers parade organizers and history magazines at this magazine we try not to get too hot and bothered about anniversaries this is partly because anniversaries seem a pretty lame excuse for a story as the most facile form of historical projection but then he made an interesting observation to my mind but the main reason is that anniversaries comer M commemorate events and as devotees of Archaeology know well enough events have only moderate importance in the overall scheme of understanding the past events can be illuminating dramatic and moving and in rare instances can be genuinely world-changing but their significance is often exaggerated he went on to refer to the historian Fernand burro del who in the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of philip ii likened events to the ripples on the surface of the sea the important phenomena for understanding the past are the tides and under currents he argued the underlying states and long-term processes that shape the history of mankind such trends for example the development of rapid transport the global impact of consumer electronics defy an diverse aerial thinking in Denison's view these long-term trends have been neglected in education by comparison with the focus on momentous events and their anniversaries and in our personal lives too he argues it's essential to achieve a balance between processes and events birth marriage and other major events are important but the long-term effects of upbringing and experience are more so Dennison challenges us to think of the things that are important to us now a love of films love of music eleventh the theater religious believes an enthusiasm for conservation a delight in cooking whatever it might be and find an anniversary all starting point for them there are some who will be able to cite a Damascene moment but they are very rare for most of us anniversaries are a distraction from what really makes us human and yet without them something is lacking anniversaries focus the mind they're a distraction yes but a necessary one I cannot do without them personally and I therefore happily bathe in the myriad anniversaries that surround my subject linguistics this year if your interest is in the language of literature for example you can attend enumerable events surrounding the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns the 300th anniversary of the birth of dr. Johnson the two hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of his death in 2009 also linguistic folklorists can meditate on the significance of the fact that while stationed at Thomas Thorpe was publishing the first edition of Shakespeare's sonnets folklorist Thomas Ravenscroft had a book published containing the first reference to three blind mice linguists with sociological or cultural interests can take heart from the fact that 2009 is the 30th anniversary of the plain English campaign when founder Chrissie ma publicly shredded hundreds of official documents in Parliament Square London it's also the four hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to Roanoke Island in old Virginia now North Carolina where he hoped to establish an English colony his first expedition failed as did others but the one in 1606 succeeded within weeks the sailors were writing letters home in which there were such Americanisms as moccasin wigwam and skunk a new dialect of English was being born linguists with technological interests can reflect on the fact but this year is the 40th anniversary of ARPANET the US Department of Defense project for research into networking which became the basis of the internet it's also the 30th anniversary of the first commercial cell phone system operated by NTT in Tokyo a remarkable array of new genres of language has developed as a consequence of these technologies such as email chatroom dialogue instant messaging blogging text messaging and of course tweeting some of you may be tweeting right now blogging has an anniversary this year it went public with the launch of blogger.com in 1999 happy birthday dear bloggers you've rewritten the rules was the headline in The Observer by John Norton and 1999 of course was the year when we first heard of Google anniversaries make us reflect being asked to give this lecture in 2009 makes me think back on my own working relationship with the press as Andy mentioned a little while ago it is indeed 40 years since I was first published by the press with two books coming out in 1969 both published by the syndics in Houston Road London 20 years later and we were putting the first edition of the Cambridge encyclopedia to bed this time in Annandale Street Edinburgh an unusual address to be associated with the press indeed but a consequence of a short-lived but exciting joint venture project between the press and W and our chambers in which the Edinburgh firm took responsibility for the books production five years later the first edition appeared of the Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language or seal as it's known in house in the now-familiar setting of Shaftesbury Road that seems to have put me in a unique position as far as the press is concerned for in michael black's history I am mentioned not once but twice the Cambridge encyclopedia on one page and ceil actually has its own picture on another truly an honor for the only other authored works if you exclude the Bible pictured in those pages are those by Isaac Newton Lord Acton and Charles Darwin some people have suggested that there is a third reference to me hidden on page 61 if you look carefully at the picture of the press's former New York office you will see that the name above the door is the crystal building I have never actually been officially informed of this accolade so I must reluctantly conclude that the name has some other interpretation 1989 not a good year to be trying to stabilize the world within the pages of an encyclopedia I've told this story before but anniversaries are all about retelling old stories so so why not today when we're in a remembering frame of mind imagine imagine a first edition of an encyclopedia going to press in a year when the whole world was being turned upside down and encyclopedia editor is always to some degree predicting the future placing a bet on stability that situations will not change sometimes the editor will win for example the date of a death generally speaking though you remember old style new style is an agreed point but sometimes the editor will lose because he or she will be overtaken by events as perhaps nothing surprising in this as it is the motive for all updated reprints and new editions but it's present in a more dramatic form in encyclopedia editing TS Eliot's Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons encyclopedia editors measure out their lives in newspaper obituaries and the regular current affairs reports in Keating's contemporary archives while in theory updating is a continuum in practice it's an infinite series of deadlines imposed by the exigencies of the publishing schedule a decision has to be made concerning the timing of an updated reprint or a new edition once that decision is made a well-oiled machine takes over time has to be booked at the printer paper has to be ordered marketing plans have to be arranged space in book shops have to be planned the editorial deadline the date by which final copy has to be submitted to the publisher is one about which there is very little flexibility nothing short of an event of worldwide significance will alter it but one thing is certain a month or a week or a few days before that deadline that world-shattering event will take place thus my deadline for the first edition of the Cambridge encyclopedia was the 15th of November 1989 on the 9th of November the East Germans opened the Berlin Wall the next day todashev cava Bulgaria is deposed we put the deadline back two weeks to see what happens a fortnight later the Communist Party leadership resigns in Czechoslovakia we put the deadline back another fortnight and rewrite our entries a year later we're in an identical position as the deadline for the first updated reprint is agreed the end of October 1990 on the 3rd of October the two Germany's unites 700 consequential changes now have to be made as all contemporary references to East and West Germany must go it cannot be done automatically as historical references to East and West Germany have to stay has to be done manually one reference at a time the deadline is put back to the end of November surely nothing else will happen on the 28th of November mrs. Thatcher resigns I took that very personally all the entries are major how heard Hesseltine baker and all the others have to be altered we meet the deadline but only just a year later and were in an identical position as we prepare for the second updated reprint and a deadline is fixed for the end of October 1991 on the 19th of August there is a coup in the Soviet Union I prepare for the worst editorially speaking a few days later the status quo is restored I breathe a sigh of editorial relief but my sigh is premature in October the KGB is abolished something is definitely up we postpone to the end of November on the 4th of November almost all Soviet Union ministries are abolished the Soviet Union is fragmenting I see over a thousand references to the USSR falling about me like autumn leaves for a brief moment there's editorial optimism on the 14th of November agreement is announced but the USS R is going to be replaced by a union of sovereign states editorially a superb decision as USSR to USS means a change of only one letter but a week is a long time in encyclopedia editing on the 25th of November seven Republic's refused to initial the treaty we postpone the deadline until the end of December perhaps USSR will stay will it be a change of name I try to find out a telephone the Soviet embassy in London what they intend to call the USSR both in English and in Russian I am asked if I want a visa I repeat the question I'm told that it is the Western press which has published the new name USS not the Soviets and that I should fold a no vesti press agency no vesti doesn't know what the name is either but a pine that if we must go into print caps ex-ussr will do the no vesti spokesman cannot help with the Russian spelling as he doesn't speak Russian and in any case the agency is closing at the end of the month he gives me the number of the Society for cultural relations with the USSR they are not answering the phone i phone the Foreign and Commonwealth Office they'll know what's going on they advise me to continue with USSR until the end of the year there will definitely be no change of name before Christmas a week later the Commonwealth of Independent States is proposed and on the 20th December Soviet embassies all over the world are told to strike the name Soviet Union from their records so much for FCO intelligence my deadline is the 1st of January it cannot be held up any further I have a busy Christmas eliminating a thousand references to the USSR but what do I do about the CIS dare I write an entry informing the readership of the reprinted cambridge encyclopedia in july 1992 but there exists an organization called a Commonwealth of Independent States it's only a proposal it might get thrown out as USS did dare I write an entry under letter C before it happens I dare in such a manner do encyclopedia editors impose structure on the world as we all know the CIS did come into being I was not embarrassed when the reprinted edition eventually appeared but conspiracy theorists might view the CIS story differently you'll remember that there were spies here in Cambridge the Cambridge for work in Philby Donald MacLean guide Burgess and Anthony blunt some people think there was a Cambridge 5 or even more but nobody as far as I know has ever suggested that there was a plant at Cambridge University Press there must have been how can the facts be explained my theory is this the Russians are in a turmoil after the events of November 1991 they do not know what to call the new country the new name CIS has been proposed but not everyone likes it then in January there's a call from their mole at the press I have seen the proofs of the next edition of the Cambridge encyclopedia he says and they contain an entry on the Commonwealth of Independent States he goes on they would not have put this in if they did not know something that we do not know the Russians see the wisdom of this remark and immediately authorize the formal use of the designation nobody ever discovered the CU pea plant nor has anyone found the message which would provide the evidence supporting this account but it will be found one day and in the meantime I humbly accept the view of those who say that I am personally responsible for the final dissolution of the Soviet Union every time I think of those unbelievably hectic editorial years I feel tired I think this is what clinical psychologists and psychotherapists call an anniversary reaction in which unresolved grief after a traumatic event manifests itself on the anniversary of that event but it has not put me off celebrating anniversaries nor I am glad to say has it put the press off either for these celebrations put us rightly in mind of the remarkable achievements of an organization which are so for so long refreshed so many of the parts that other publishers have been unable to reach it's difficult to know to whom to give the last word on anniversaries perhaps it should be Longfellow who reflected in his poem holidays the holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart the secret anniversaries of the heart perhaps it should be George Bernard Shaw to get the last word on anniversaries in a review of as you like it in the Saturday Review of the 2nd of May 1896 he commented annual celebrations are all very well in theory but they're too much of a good thing have long ceased to celebrate my own birthday and I don't see why I should celebrate Shakespeare's but my vote my vote for the last word on anniversaries his liverpool football manager Bill Shankly the one you may recall who denied that football was a matter of life and death it's much more important than that here's someone who gave anniversaries both respect and disrespect at the same time and I can't think of a better way of summarizing the ambivalence I've encountered towards the notion of anniversaries he said of course I didn't take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present it was a birthday would they have got married during the football season and anyway it wasn't Rochdale it was Rochdale reserves thank you very much Legion you

Channel: Cambridge University

Views: 82,463

Keywords: Highlighted Lecture, David Crystal, Cambridge, Cambridge University, World Famous, Linguist, Printing, Publishing, University Press

Id: MIeD0uRWeYA

Length: 59min 1sec (3541 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2009