In memoriam: Katherine Barber (1959-2021)

We are very saddened to have learned of the loss of Katherine Barber, prominent lexicographer of Canadian English and longtime friend and colleague of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto (as well as a singer alongside a proportion of us at St. Thomas's Anglican Church).

Jack Chambers (faculty), who served as Editorial Advisor for the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, has kindly shared this appreciation:

Katherine Barber, known to morning radio listeners in the 1990s as the Word Lady and to countless word-seekers as the editor of the splendid Canadian Oxford Dictionary, died on April 24 of brain cancer. She was 61.

Katherine was a frequent guest at the university. Her last visit was about ten years ago as part of an eclectic usage panel put together by Carol Percy, language maven of the English department, with journalist/cartoonist Warren Clements and others. By then, Oxford University Press had shut down its dictionary department in Canada, and Katherine was engrossed in ballet, her other great passion, as manager and guide for Tours en l’Air, taking balletomanes to performances by the leading companies around the world.

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, though only one of her accomplishments, was a phenomenon. When it was published in 1998, it was immediately adopted as the standard guidebook by the Canadian Press and most periodicals, and it sat on the Globe and Mail bestseller list for over a year. Its distinction was the result of Katherine's enacting lexicography in its purest form, by assembling readers to pore over documents and keep a record of every meaning and usage they found. That was the method established by the monumental Oxford English Dictionary, and it was laborious – 27 years for the first fascicle, 43 more years for all the rest (1884-1927). Since then, most dictionary-makers have cut corners by using existing databases (notably the OED), and adding as many original documents as practicable. Not Katherine. She trained five readers in her Don Mills office and in five years they pored over 8,000 publications – novels, newspapers, supermarket flyers, Canadian Tire catalogues, and much more. Among its 300,000 entries, they documented hundreds of Canadianisms (including "Canadianism"). Along with the expected "butter tart," "loonie," and "double double," they discovered the idiosyncratically Canadian verbs in "The caretaker will salt the steps," and "I’m going to shovel the driveway," and the homely "mitt" for fingerless woollies as well as the catcher's gear, and "scraper" applied to ice as well as mud or fish scales.

Though soft-spoken, she was the boss lady as well as the Word Lady. One morning, Katherine and I were guests on a CBC radio show called "And Sometimes Y." We were greeted at the station by Tom Howell, the "in-house word nerd" (his description) who had been trained in Katherine's atelier. "I’m surprised you have made it through seven shows," she told him, with a small grin, "before you got around to inviting me." In the company of two people who knew so well what she had accomplished, it just seemed a matter of fact.

In memoriam: William J. Samarin (1926-2020)

We are very saddened to have learned of the passing of Professor Emeritus Bill Samarin, a linguistic anthropologist of towering reputation, on January 16 at the age of 93. Bill joined our faculty in 1967 - the same year he introduced the term 'field linguistics' in a newly published book. Prior to this, as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, Bill had already begun working on the Niger-Congo languages (especially Gbeya) and creole linguistics (particularly Sango), and continued doing so for the rest of his days - well past his official retirement in the early 1990s. He had a number of departmental undergraduates and graduate students working on his grant-funded projects all the way up to present-day Ph.D. students, and could be found on campus well into his eighties. In 2018, Bill attended our 50th Anniversary festivities as he was completing a comprehensive new work on Central African languages. Thanks to Jack Chambers (faculty) for sharing the details, as well as this anecdote:

"He became a kind of venerated figure in the African community where he worked partly because his use of the pidgin Sango was seen as classic, retaining features that were lost by young speakers. He was proud to tell me that elders would send their children to speak with him as he sat in the town common so they could get a taste of 'proper' Sango."

Rest in peace, Bill.

Department gathering in support of the Iranian community

We will be holding a gathering at 4 PM today in the department lounge in support of the Iranians and Iranian-Canadians among us in the wake of the loss of Ukraine International Airlines PS752. Everyone will be welcome to say a few words.

New rooms!

Following the rapid construction last week, we now have two glass-walled rooms in the library area. Kudos to the staff and the faculty nearby who endured the noise and dust!

To honour two beloved late members of the faculty who were instrumental in the development of our department, we have named the new room at the end of the library by the east-facing windows the Ed Burstynsky Room, and the one closer to the office the Hank Rogers Room.

Please note that the walls do not extend all the way up to the ceiling and so neither of these spaces is soundproof. Please be careful about sensitive information and about sound levels.

Both rooms can be booked via the departmental Google Calendar, or through Jennifer if need be. Graduate/emeritus faculty who do not have their own private offices in our department have priority (and exclusive use of these rooms on Fridays), followed by course instructors who need space to meet with students.

In memoriam: Emma Johnson (1977-2015)

We are deeply saddened to have learned that alumna Emma Johnson (MA 2003) passed away on August 20th after a battle with cancer. Emma did research in psycholinguistics in our department, and later received a degree in speech pathology and worked in Ottawa for a number of years. We would like to extend our condolences to Emma's family, including her partner, Jason, and their children, Joey and Maddie. Rest in peace, Emma.

In memoriam: Saila Michael (1968-2015)

We are very sorry to announce that Saila Michael has suddenly passed away. Saila was a teacher of Inuktitut, a superb language consultant, and a friend around the department for years. Her judgments and intuitions were an enormous help to our scholarly community and formed the backbone of many doctoral theses, Generals papers, and MA Forum papers. Her legacy around the department is that of considerable linguistic knowledge and abundant warm memories.

(Thanks to Alana Johns for the details.)

In memoriam: Barron Brainerd (1928-2015)

Barron Brainerd (1928-2015), who died last Tuesday, was a member of the Linguistics department from its inception as a Centre in 1964 until he retired in 1989. He was also professor in the Mathematics department. The courses he taught for us were in mathematical linguistics, and he had a lively interest in the syntax of number systems. Barron was born in New York City. He had degrees in Mathematics from MIT and Michigan. He came to the University in 1957 and became a Canadian citizen two years later. He was a member of the interdepartmental group that lobbied to get a Linguistics program, and he was always a staunch supporter of our initiatives. Barron had a patrician bearing, always neatly turned out. His interest in linguistics developed out of a lifelong curiosity about languages, and he loved working through dictionaries and grammars. RIP.

Marshall Chasin adds: Professor Brainerd was my undergraduate advisor in the Mathematics and Linguistics program. I think now that course of study would be called cognitive linguistics (?) but probably had more math back then. I once attended a seminar class where he wrote an equation on the board, then stared at the board for about 30 minutes without moving, and then started talking as if there was no delay. I worked for him during the summer of 1979 doing statistical analysis for him about quantifying Shakespeare's plays.

(Post courtesy of Jack Chambers.)

Ed's bench under the sakura blossoms

Alana provides this lovely picture of the Edward N. Burstynsky (1935-2007) memorial bench, in full glory with the cherry blossoms

Spring has arrived on campus

Alana has sent along this lovely photo of the cherry trees blossoming by Ed Burstynsky's memorial bench outside Robarts. (Click on the image to see it full-size.)

Hank Rogers

We are very sorry to report the death of Professor Emeritus Hank Rogers, a member of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto since 1967.

We will miss him!

To learn more about Hank, visit his website.

Further information and directions to his funeral can be found at: www.chass.utoronto.ca/linguistics/news_events/rogers/.

You are invited to make donations in his memory to the Henry Rogers Undergraduate Scholarship in Linguistics.

Please share your thoughts about Hank by commenting on this post.