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'''Allen Walker Read''' (June<ref name=ANS>[http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/onoma/Default.htm#Read ''Who Was Who in North American Name Study''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415052613/http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/onoma/Default.htm#Read |date=2012-04-15 }}, American Name Society, accessed February 15, 2007.</ref> 2,<ref name=Times>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article824124.ece ''The Times''], November 8, 2002, obituary.</ref><ref name =SCT>{{cite news |last=Luther |first=Claudia |title=Obituaries. ALLEN WALKER READ, 96, ‘OK’ ETYMOLOGIST |url=http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20021021/NEWS03/310219998 |newspaper=[[South Coast Today]] |date=January 12, 2011 |accessdate=July 3, 2017}}</ref> 1906 – October 16, 2002) was an American [[etymologist]] and [[lexicographer]], best known for his studies into the words "[[OK]]" and "[[fuck]]."
'''Allen Walker Read''' (June<ref name=ANS>[http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/onoma/Default.htm#Read ''Who Was Who in North American Name Study''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415052613/http://www.wtsn.binghamton.edu/onoma/Default.htm#Read |date=2012-04-15 }}, American Name Society, accessed February 15, 2007.</ref> 2,<ref name=Times>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article824124.ece ''The Times''], November 8, 2002, obituary.</ref><ref name =SCT>{{cite news |last=Luther |first=Claudia |title=Obituaries. ALLEN WALKER READ, 96, ‘OK’ ETYMOLOGIST |url=http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20021021/NEWS03/310219998 |newspaper=[[South Coast Today]] |date=January 12, 2011 |accessdate=July 3, 2017}}</ref> 1906 – October 16, 2002) was an American [[etymologist]] and [[lexicographer]], best known for his studies into the words "[[OK]]" and "[[fuck]]."


== Biography ==
== Biography and career ==
Read was born in [[Winnebago, Minnesota]]. His one sister, Mary Jo, became a professor of geography at [[Eastern Illinois University]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Beth|first=Mary|last2=Jolley|first2=Laura R.|date=February 2019|title=Allen Walker Read Papers|url=https://files.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C4033.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104213559/https://files.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C4033.pdf |archive-date=2021-11-04 |access-date=26 November 2020|website=The State Historical Society of Missouri}}</ref> He earned a bachelor's degree from the [[University of Northern Iowa]] (called Iowa State Teachers College at the time) in 1925, a master's degree from the [[University of Iowa]] in 1926, and studied at the University of Oxford as a [[Rhodes Scholarship|Rhodes Scholar]] from 1928 to 1931. He was a repeated contributor to ''[[American Speech]]'' by 1931.
Read was born in [[Winnebago, Minnesota]]. His one sister, Mary Jo, became a professor of geography at [[Eastern Illinois University]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Beth|first=Mary|last2=Jolley|first2=Laura R.|date=February 2019|title=Allen Walker Read Papers|url=https://files.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C4033.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104213559/https://files.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C4033.pdf |archive-date=2021-11-04 |access-date=26 November 2020|website=The State Historical Society of Missouri}}</ref> He earned a bachelor's degree from the [[University of Northern Iowa]] (called Iowa State Teachers College at the time) in 1925, a master's degree from the [[University of Iowa]] in 1926, and studied at the University of Oxford as a [[Rhodes Scholarship|Rhodes Scholar]] from 1928 to 1931. He was a repeated contributor to ''[[American Speech]]'' by 1931.


=== ''Classic American Graffiti'' ===
Read's first extended work, ''Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary'', was privately published at his own expense in Paris in 1935 since its description of bathroom [[graffiti]] was considered too racy for American publishers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Major |first=Clarence |date=1979 |title=Classic American Graffiti: Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America, A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/456054 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=148–150 |doi=10.1353/dic.1979.0016 |issn=2160-5076}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Read |first=Allen Walker |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3523105 |title=Classic American graffiti : lexical evidence from folk epigraphy in western North America : a glossarial study of the low element in the English vocabulary |date=1977 |publisher=Maledicta |year=1977 |isbn=0-916500-06-3 |location=Waukesha, Wis. |pages=28 |chapter=Bibliographical Note |oclc=3523105}}</ref> Even then, the printing was limited to 75 copies and contained a disclaimer that it should be "restricted to students of linguistics, folk-lore, abnormal psychology and allied branches of social science."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kulick |first=Don |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53366822 |title=The handbook of language and gender |date=2003 |others= |isbn=1-4051-2320-6 |editor-last=Holmes |editor-first=Janet |location=Malden, MA |pages=120 |chapter=Language and Desire |oclc=53366822 |editor-last2=Meyerhoff |editor-first2=Miriam}}</ref> It was eventually published in the United States in 1977, under the title ''Classic American Graffiti'', {{ISBN|0-916500-06-3}}. The work was described as a classic "model study" of [[latrinalia]] that "deserves the attention of any serious student of American language" in a 1979 review, which noted that even then it remained hard to access and "excessively rare."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brunvand |first=Jan Harold |date=1979 |title=Classic American Graffiti by Allen Walker Read (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/459038 |journal=Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=217–217 |issn=1948-2833}}</ref> It contains some of the earliest documentation in English of words used by the homosexual community, although Read never recorded the word "gay", implying that the term was not used to mean homosexual during this time period.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kulick |first=Don |date=2000-10-21 |title=Gay and Lesbian Language |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=243–285 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |issn=0084-6570}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20490067 |title=Displacing homophobia : gay male perspectives in literature and culture |date=1989 |others=Ronald R. Butters, John M. Clum, Michael Moon |isbn=0-8223-0970-X |location=Durham, N.C. |oclc=20490067}}</ref>
Read's first extended work, ''Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary'', was privately published at his own expense in Paris in 1935 since its description of bathroom [[graffiti]] was considered too racy for American publishers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Major |first=Clarence |date=1979 |title=Classic American Graffiti: Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America, A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/456054 |journal=Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=148–150 |doi=10.1353/dic.1979.0016 |issn=2160-5076}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Read |first=Allen Walker |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3523105 |title=Classic American graffiti : lexical evidence from folk epigraphy in western North America : a glossarial study of the low element in the English vocabulary |date=1977 |publisher=Maledicta |year=1977 |isbn=0-916500-06-3 |location=Waukesha, Wis. |pages=28 |chapter=Bibliographical Note |oclc=3523105}}</ref> Even then, the printing was limited to 75 copies and contained a disclaimer that it should be "restricted to students of linguistics, folk-lore, abnormal psychology and allied branches of social science."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kulick |first=Don |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53366822 |title=The handbook of language and gender |date=2003 |others= |isbn=1-4051-2320-6 |editor-last=Holmes |editor-first=Janet |location=Malden, MA |pages=120 |chapter=Language and Desire |oclc=53366822 |editor-last2=Meyerhoff |editor-first2=Miriam}}</ref> It was eventually published in the United States in 1977, under the title ''Classic American Graffiti'', {{ISBN|0-916500-06-3}}.<ref>{{Citation |last=Allan |first=Keith |title=The Semantics and Pragmatics of Three Potential Slurring Terms |date=2020 |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9 |work=Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication |pages=163–183 |editor-last=Mullan |editor-first=Kerry |place=Singapore |publisher=Springer Singapore |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9 |isbn=978-981-329-982-5 |access-date=2022-02-27 |editor2-last=Peeters |editor2-first=Bert |editor3-last=Sadow |editor3-first=Lauren}}</ref> The work was described as a classic "model study" of [[latrinalia]] that "deserves the attention of any serious student of American language" in a 1979 review, which noted that even then it remained hard to access and "excessively rare."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brunvand |first=Jan Harold |date=1979 |title=Classic American Graffiti by Allen Walker Read (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/459038 |journal=Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=217–217 |issn=1948-2833}}</ref> It contains some of the earliest documentation in English of words used by the homosexual community, although Read never recorded the word "gay", implying that the term was not used to mean homosexual during this time period.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kulick |first=Don |date=2000-10-21 |title=Gay and Lesbian Language |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=243–285 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243 |issn=0084-6570}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20490067 |title=Displacing homophobia : gay male perspectives in literature and culture |date=1989 |others=Ronald R. Butters, John M. Clum, Michael Moon |isbn=0-8223-0970-X |location=Durham, N.C. |oclc=20490067}}</ref> The work also contained Read's concept of the ''inverted taboo'', in which some people delight in vulgarity because of its illicit nature.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dynel |first=Marta |date=2012-05-29 |title=Swearing methodologically : the (im)politeness of expletives in anonymous commentaries on Youtube |url=https://publicaciones.unirioja.es/ojs/index.php/jes/article/view/179 |journal=Journal of English Studies |language=en |volume=10 |issue=0 |pages=25–50 |doi=10.18172/jes.179 |issn=1695-4300}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hurlbut |first=Marilyn |date=1976 |title=Verbal Taboo in Shampoo |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20687332 |journal=Journal of the University Film Association |volume=28 |issue=3 |pages=35–38 |issn=0041-9311 |via=JSTOR}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Andrews |first=Edna |date=1996 |title=Cultural Sensitivity and Political Correctness: The Linguistic Problem of Naming |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/455713 |journal=American Speech |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=389–404 |doi=10.2307/455713 |issn=0003-1283}}</ref>


⚫
=== Other works ===
Since 1938, he worked on a dictionary of [[British English|Britishisms]], but was never able to complete it throughout his life.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|date=2002-10-18|title=Allen Read, 96, the 'O.K.' Expert, Is Dead (Published 2002)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/18/nyregion/allen-read-96-the-ok-expert-is-dead.html|access-date=2020-11-26|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> During [[World War II]], he did his service with the [[Military Intelligence Division (United States)|Military Intelligence Division]] working on an ''American Military Definition Dictionary and Military Phrase Books.''<ref name=":1" /> He was a chaired professor at [[Columbia University]] in New York City from 1945 until 1975.<ref name="Times" /><ref name=":0" />
Since 1938, he worked on a dictionary of [[British English|Britishisms]], but was never able to complete it throughout his life.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|date=2002-10-18|title=Allen Read, 96, the 'O.K.' Expert, Is Dead (Published 2002)|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/18/nyregion/allen-read-96-the-ok-expert-is-dead.html|access-date=2020-11-26|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> During [[World War II]], he did his service with the [[Military Intelligence Division (United States)|Military Intelligence Division]] working on an ''American Military Definition Dictionary and Military Phrase Books.''<ref name=":1" /> He was a chaired professor at [[Columbia University]] in New York City from 1945 until 1975.<ref name="Times" /><ref name=":0" /> In 1948, H.L. Mencken wrote that Read <nowiki>''probably knows more about early Americanisms than anyone else on earth.''</nowiki><ref name=":0" />


⚫
Allen Walker Read unveiled the actual origin of the work "OK"<ref>{{Cite web |title=October 24, 2002 - Allen Walker Read / 'O.K.' - 2002-10-23 |url=https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/a-23-a-2002-10-23-3-1-83111172/117929.html |access-date=2020-11-26 |website=VOA |language=en}}</ref> a series of articles published in the magazine ''[[American Speech]]'' between 1963 and 1964. Read also successfully traced the origin of the word Dixie, Podunk, and attributed the first use of " the almighty dollar" to [[Washington Irving]]. He wrote the entry for "dictionary" in the [[Encyclopædia Britannica|Encyclopaedia Britannica]]. Read's career included studies of euphemisms, [[graffiti]], [[slang]], [[pig Latin]], [[Doublespeak|Doubletalk]], and [[Baby talk|adult baby talk]].<ref name=":0" />
⚫
He died in New York City in September 2002.<ref name="Times" /><ref name=":0" />


⚫
Read served as the head of the [[International Linguistic Association]], and also as the President of the [[Semiotic Society of America]] in 1980.<ref name=":0" />
== Work ==
⚫
Allen Walker Read unveiled the actual origin of the work "OK"<ref>{{Cite web|title=October 24, 2002 - Allen Walker Read / 'O.K.' - 2002-10-23|url=https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/a-23-a-2002-10-23-3-1-83111172/117929.html|access-date=2020-11-26|website=VOA|language=en}}</ref> a series of articles published in the magazine ''[[American Speech]]'' between 1963 and 1964. He also discovered how the Rocky Mountains were called the Northern Andes in 1804. He traced the origin of the word Dixie, Podunk, and attributed the first use of " the almighty dollar" to [[Washington Irving]]. He wrote the entry "dictionary" of the [[Encyclopædia Britannica|Encyclopaedia Britannica]]. He studied euphemisms, [[graffiti]], [[slang]], [[pig Latin]], [[Doublespeak|Doubletalk]], and [[Baby talk|adult baby talk]].<ref name=":0" />


⚫
He died in New York City in September 2002.<ref name="Times" /><ref name=":0" />
⚫
== Other roles ==

⚫
* Head of the [[International Linguistic Association]]<ref name=":0" />
* 1980: President of the [[Semiotic Society of America]]


== Personal life ==
== Personal life ==

Revision as of 22:29, 27 February 2022

Allen Walker Read (June[1] 2,[2][3] 1906 – October 16, 2002) was an American etymologist and lexicographer, best known for his studies into the words "OK" and "fuck."

Biography and career

Read was born in Winnebago, Minnesota. His one sister, Mary Jo, became a professor of geography at Eastern Illinois University.[4] He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Northern Iowa (called Iowa State Teachers College at the time) in 1925, a master's degree from the University of Iowa in 1926, and studied at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar from 1928 to 1931. He was a repeated contributor to American Speech by 1931.

Classic American Graffiti

Read's first extended work, Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary, was privately published at his own expense in Paris in 1935 since its description of bathroom graffiti was considered too racy for American publishers.[5][6] Even then, the printing was limited to 75 copies and contained a disclaimer that it should be "restricted to students of linguistics, folk-lore, abnormal psychology and allied branches of social science."[7] It was eventually published in the United States in 1977, under the title Classic American Graffiti, ISBN 0-916500-06-3.[8] The work was described as a classic "model study" of latrinalia that "deserves the attention of any serious student of American language" in a 1979 review, which noted that even then it remained hard to access and "excessively rare."[9] It contains some of the earliest documentation in English of words used by the homosexual community, although Read never recorded the word "gay", implying that the term was not used to mean homosexual during this time period.[10][11] The work also contained Read's concept of the inverted taboo, in which some people delight in vulgarity because of its illicit nature.[12][13][14]

Other works

Since 1938, he worked on a dictionary of Britishisms, but was never able to complete it throughout his life.[15] During World War II, he did his service with the Military Intelligence Division working on an American Military Definition Dictionary and Military Phrase Books.[4] He was a chaired professor at Columbia University in New York City from 1945 until 1975.[2][15] In 1948, H.L. Mencken wrote that Read ''probably knows more about early Americanisms than anyone else on earth.''[15]

Allen Walker Read unveiled the actual origin of the work "OK"[16] a series of articles published in the magazine American Speech between 1963 and 1964. Read also successfully traced the origin of the word Dixie, Podunk, and attributed the first use of " the almighty dollar" to Washington Irving. He wrote the entry for "dictionary" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Read's career included studies of euphemisms, graffiti, slang, pig Latin, Doubletalk, and adult baby talk.[15]

Read served as the head of the International Linguistic Association, and also as the President of the Semiotic Society of America in 1980.[15]

He died in New York City in September 2002.[2][15]

Personal life

He married Charlotte Schuchardt, director of the Institute of General Semantics, in 1953. They remained together until she died in July 2002.[1][15] They had no children.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Who Was Who in North American Name Study Archived 2012-04-15 at the Wayback Machine, American Name Society, accessed February 15, 2007.
  2. ^ a b c The Times, November 8, 2002, obituary.
  3. ^ a b Luther, Claudia (January 12, 2011). "Obituaries. ALLEN WALKER READ, 96, 'OK' ETYMOLOGIST". South Coast Today. Retrieved July 3, 2017.
  4. ^ a b Beth, Mary; Jolley, Laura R. (February 2019). "Allen Walker Read Papers" (PDF). The State Historical Society of Missouri. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-11-04. Retrieved 26 November 2020.
  5. ^ Major, Clarence (1979). "Classic American Graffiti: Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America, A Glossarial Study of the Low Element in the English Vocabulary (review)". Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. 1 (1): 148–150. doi:10.1353/dic.1979.0016. ISSN 2160-5076.
  6. ^ Read, Allen Walker (1977). "Bibliographical Note". Classic American graffiti : lexical evidence from folk epigraphy in western North America : a glossarial study of the low element in the English vocabulary. Waukesha, Wis.: Maledicta. p. 28. ISBN 0-916500-06-3. OCLC 3523105.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  7. ^ Kulick, Don (2003). "Language and Desire". In Holmes, Janet; Meyerhoff, Miriam (eds.). The handbook of language and gender. Malden, MA. p. 120. ISBN 1-4051-2320-6. OCLC 53366822.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Allan, Keith (2020), Mullan, Kerry; Peeters, Bert; Sadow, Lauren (eds.), "The Semantics and Pragmatics of Three Potential Slurring Terms", Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication, Singapore: Springer Singapore, pp. 163–183, doi:10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_9, ISBN 978-981-329-982-5, retrieved 2022-02-27
  9. ^ Brunvand, Jan Harold (1979). "Classic American Graffiti by Allen Walker Read (review)". Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature. 33 (4): 217–217. ISSN 1948-2833.
  10. ^ Kulick, Don (2000-10-21). "Gay and Lesbian Language". Annual Review of Anthropology. 29 (1): 243–285. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.29.1.243. ISSN 0084-6570.
  11. ^ Displacing homophobia : gay male perspectives in literature and culture. Ronald R. Butters, John M. Clum, Michael Moon. Durham, N.C. 1989. ISBN 0-8223-0970-X. OCLC 20490067.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  12. ^ Dynel, Marta (2012-05-29). "Swearing methodologically : the (im)politeness of expletives in anonymous commentaries on Youtube". Journal of English Studies. 10 (0): 25–50. doi:10.18172/jes.179. ISSN 1695-4300.
  13. ^ Hurlbut, Marilyn (1976). "Verbal Taboo in Shampoo". Journal of the University Film Association. 28 (3): 35–38. ISSN 0041-9311 – via JSTOR.
  14. ^ Andrews, Edna (1996). "Cultural Sensitivity and Political Correctness: The Linguistic Problem of Naming". American Speech. 71 (4): 389–404. doi:10.2307/455713. ISSN 0003-1283.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Martin, Douglas (2002-10-18). "Allen Read, 96, the 'O.K.' Expert, Is Dead (Published 2002)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-26.
  16. ^ "October 24, 2002 - Allen Walker Read / 'O.K.' - 2002-10-23". VOA. Retrieved 2020-11-26.

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