Richard Palmer

On 21 June Richard Palmer retired. He leaves an enormous gap in the OED's in-house expertise, for his knowledge of plants was enormous; latterly Richard was occupied full-time on OED entries for plant names. His training in Latin and Greek meant that he was often turned to by the members of the Etymology Group. Richard was noted for his very clear and distinctive handwriting, still a valuable attribute for a lexicographer in this age of keyboards and computers.

Richard had been with OUP for 42 years, and on the staff of the OED revision project for the last seven. His career started on 30 September 1957, when he joined The Oxford Latin Dictionary, working under Peter Glare. In 1981, with the completion of this project, Richard moved to the Supplement to the OED; in 1984 to the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary; and in 1993 to the OED revision project. Apart from his work at OUP, Richard is well-known in the Department of Plant Sciences in Oxford University, as both a contributor of specimens to its herbarium, and as someone who can answer questions sent in to the Department by members of the public. He has also co-authored a work on the flora of the Shetlands, and we look forward to benefiting from his expertise in his new capacity of botany consultant.