GREENBAUM, Sidney

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GREENBAUM, Sidney [1929–1996]. British linguist, internationally known not only for his work on the GRAMMAR of STANDARD ENGLISH but also for organizing computerized corpora of English texts and the grammatical tagging and analysis of their content. Born into a poor Yiddish-speaking family in the East End of London, he gained a BA and MA in Hebrew and Aramaic at Jews' College, U. of London, and trained (though he never practised) as a rabbi. After training as a teacher, he first worked in a primary school (1954–7) then taught English and Hebrew at the Hasmonean Boys' School in Hendon (1957–64), where he was head of English while also studying part-time for a BA in English at Birkbeck College, U. of London. In 1965 he became a research assistant on the SURVEY OF ENGLISH USAGE at University College London (UCL), working for Randolph QUIRK and gaining his Ph.D., following which he worked abroad, as: Assistant Professor of English at the U. of Oregon (1968–9), Associate Professor of English at the U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1969–72), Visiting Professor in English at the Hebrew U. Jerusalem, 1972–3, and Professor of English at Milwaukee (1972–83). In 1983, he became Quain Professor of English Language and Literature, and director of the Survey of English, at UCL, in 1988 setting up the INTERNATIONAL CORPUS OF ENGLISH. In 1990, he retired from the Quain chair but continued as director of the Survey. His publications include: Studies in English Adverbial Usage (1969, based on his doctoral research), A Grammar of Contemporary English (with Randolph Quirk, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik, 1972), A University Grammar of English (with Quirk, 1973); The English Language Today (editor, 1985); A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (with Quirk, Leech, and Svartvik, 1985); Longman Guide to English Usage (with Janet Whitcut, 1988); An Introduction to English Grammar (1991); and The Oxford English Grammar (1996). He was also an associate editor of The Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992), with particular responsibility for the grammar of the STANDARD LANGUAGE.