Remembering Sue Atkins

Michael Rundell Sue Atkins, who died in September at the age of 90, was a true visionary, and one of the most important and influential lexicographers of this or any other era. Her long and distinguished career began in the 1960s — when dictionary-making inhabited a rather amateurish, index-carded (and male-dominated) milieu — and continued well into the 21st century. By the time Sue retired (if she ever truly did), corpus-based lexicography was the norm, collaborations between lexicographers and linguists were almost routine, and tools for semi-automatic dictionary compilation were already well advanced. But the important point here is not simply that Sue lived through these dramatic changes — she was one of the key people driving them, and her impact will continue to be felt for years to come. The eight pieces collected here come from friends and colleagues who worked with Sue at different points in her career. They testify to her massive contributions across the range of activities — technical, theoretical, and practical — which her career spanned. They also show the great admiration and affection in which Sue was held by all who knew her and worked with her. Reading these reminiscences, one can’t help noticing a number of recurrent themes: her remarkable insight into the nature of language; her readiness to engage with people from other communities (academic linguists, computer scientists, and so on) in order to take things forward; her boundless energy and infectious enthusiasm; her organisational skills and talent for getting things done (and for knowing what needed to be done); and her wit, charm, and great capacity for fun and friendship. Whatever the situation, Sue was always good company, as many of these reminiscences attest

Admiration · Affection · Enthusiasm · Lexicography · Linguistics · Reading (process · Sociology · Lexicography and Language Studies · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Psychology · History · Philosophy · Social Psychology