biography
| name: |
Gove, Philip (Babcock)
|
pronunciation:
[gohv]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1902–42)
|
| biography:
| Lexicographer, born in Concord, New Hampshire, USA. He taught English at New York University (1930–42) while earning a PhD at Columbia University (1943). After serving in the US Navy (1942–6), he began a new career in lexicography when he was hired by G & C Merriam Co (1946) as editor of the successor to the second edition (1934) in its line of unabridged dictionaries. Webster's Third International Dictionary aroused controversy on its publication in 1961, when it was parodied by the New York Times and attacked by language purists for its supposed permissiveness in accepting bad usage as evidence of language change. Linguistic scholars and lexicographers have since assigned it a place as one of the finest and most original American dictionaries, and Gove's status as one of the outstanding lexicographers is secure. |
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