In Memoriam: Richard Bailey, Ph.D.
Last month, the University of Michigan Press was saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Richard Bailey. Richard was a professor at the University of Michigan, and a University of Michigan Press author many times over.
His work includes:
- English as a World Language (1982), Co-editor
- Dictionaries of English: Prospects for the Record of Our Language (1987), Editor
“the library of everyone concerned with or about dictionaries and lexicography. ” -- Verbatin: The Language Quarterly
This book demonstrates how people's opinions about the English language often reflect prejudice and hope, bigotry and pride, scorn and celebration. It offers a fascinating perspective on attitudes toward the English language—the rise and fall of ideas that English is nearly perfect or tumbling into decline.
- Nineteenth-Century English (1997)
Bailey shows how linguistic details gained powerful social meaning in the emergent stratification by class, region, race, and gender of the anglophone community.
“extensive and original research…any student of the language – and certainly any lexicographer or scholar interested in lexicon – would be well served by reading Bailey’s book."--The Lexicographer
“ideal for readers who love delving into historical intrigue.” --Lansing State Journal
"compelling and strange" --James Tobin, author of To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight
"Out of the dark narrative of wordsmithing and murder, genius and evil, ripe with a whiff of formalin and scholarship, Dr. Bailey brings us the thing to be wished for--a great good read."--Thomas Lynch
