Radio: Three Little Words

MIDWAY SIGNS LIMEY PROF TO DOPE YANK TALK.

This irreverent headline in Chicago's Britain-baiting Tribune had to be decoded for Sir William Craigie when he reached the Midwest's capital in 1925. The "Limey prof," a shy, spike-bearded little Scotsman, was charmed. That was the kind of talk he had come to the U.S. to codify; No one could question his fitness for the job. One of the world's great linguists, he was co-editor of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, for which monumental task he was knighted.

The story of Sir William and his Dictionary of...

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