̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - James Diggle

Cambridge's finest recognised in 2022 New Year's Honours

ps748 — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 10:00:00 +0000

Among those awarded is Emeritus Professor James Diggle who receives the CBE for Services to Classical Scholarship. He was Professor of Greek and Latin from 1995 until he retired in 2011 and is a Fellow of the British Academy as well as Life Fellow at Queens' College.

Professor Diggle said: “My pleasure in receiving this honour will, I hope, be shared by Queens' College and the Faculty of Classics, both of which I have been closely associated with throughout the whole of my career, and also by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press, which has just published the Greek Lexicon on which I worked as Editor for over 20 years.”

Lynne McClure, Director of Cambridge Mathematics, receives the OBE for Services to Education. Cambridge Mathematics is an enterprise committed to championing and securing a world class mathematics education for all students from 3 to 19 years old and is a collaboration of three ̽��ֱ�� partners – Cambridge Press and Assessment, and the Faculties of Mathematics and Education.

She said: “I am very pleased personally to be a recipient in the New Year’s Honours, but even more delighted that this award highlights the importance of mathematics education – for everyone. At Cambridge Mathematics we are privileged to benefit from collaboration with amazing practitioners, researchers and designers in the UK and internationally, working together to improve mathematics education, worldwide.”

Professor Pauline Rose, Professor of International Education and Director of Research for Equitable Access and Learning Centre in the Faculty of Education, receives the OBE for Services to International Girls’ Education: “I’m truly honoured and genuinely surprised to receive an OBE for services to international girls’ education. Thanks to all who’ve worked with me, supported and challenged me over the years. I look forward to continued collaboration on evidence to improve quality education for all.”

Professor Lorand Bartels, Professor of International Law in the Faculty of Law and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, receives an MBE for Services to UK Trade Policy. Professor Bartels, who is currently Chair of the UK’s Trade and Agriculture Commission, said: "It is a great honour for a trade lawyer to be recognised in this way. It has been a privilege to be able to work with the government over the last few years as it has developed its newly independent trade policies, and it has been immensely satisfying to be able to put my academic work into practice. I hope that this award inspires others to become involved in what is truly a fascinating and important area of international law."

Dr Robert Bud, Affiliated Scholar, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, receives an MBE for Services to the Science Museum and Northern Industrial Heritage. Robert Bud is Emeritus Keeper at the Science Museum, London, where he was a senior curator for 40 years: “I have benefited tremendously from association with the History and Philosophy of Science Department whose researchers have welcomed me, encouraged presentations, and collaborated on projects to great benefit of my work at the Science Museum.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��'s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen J Toope, said: "It’s pleasing to see another group of people associated with Collegiate Cambridge receiving recognition in the New Year’s Honours list. Public service is what so many of us at this ̽��ֱ�� aspire to and it’s been noticeable in abundance over the last two years. I offer my congratulations to those who’ve been honoured in this way for their commitment and their achievements."

Academics and other staff associated with the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge feature in the 2022 New Year's Honours List.

Public service is what so many of us at this ̽��ֱ�� aspire to and it’s been noticeable in abundance over the last two years.

Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor

Senate House

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Epic dictionary re-defines Ancient Greek including the words which made the Victorians blush

ta385 — Thu, 27 May 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Recently published by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press, the Lexicon provides fresh definitions and translations gleaned by re-reading most of Ancient Greek literature from its foundations in Homer, right through to the early second century AD.

Introducing up-to-date English, the new dictionary clarifies meanings that had become obscured by antiquated verbiage in Liddell and Scott’s Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon which was first published in 1889.

Editor-in-Chief, Professor James Diggle of Queens' College said: “We don’t call βλαύτη 'a kind of slipper worn by fops' as in the Intermediate Lexicon. In the Cambridge Lexicon, this becomes 'a kind of simple footwear, slipper'.”

̽��ֱ��team has also rescued words from Victorian attempts at modesty. “We spare no blushes,” said Diggle. “We do not translate the verb χέζω as 'ease oneself, do one's need'. We translate it as 'to shit'. Nor do we explain 'βινέω as 'inire, coire, of illicit intercourse', but simply translate it by the f-word.”

̽��ֱ��two volumes are set to become instantly indispensable for Classics students as well as an important reference work for scholars.

̽��ֱ��team used online databases – the Perseus Digital Library and later the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae – to make this huge corpus more easily accessible and searchable.

̽��ֱ��researchers pored over every word, working steadily through the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet to build up a clear, modern and accessible guide to the meanings of Ancient Greek words and their development through different contexts and authors. ̽��ֱ��Lexicon features around 37,000 Greek words drawn from the writings of around 90 different authors and set out across more than 1,500 pages.

̽��ֱ��project, which began in 1997, was the brainchild of the renowned Classical philologist and lexicographer John Chadwick (1920–98). ̽��ֱ��initial plan was to revise the Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. An abridged version of a lexicon published in 1843, it has never been revised, but until now has remained the lexicon most commonly used by students in English schools and universities. It was hoped that the project might be completed by a single editor within five years.

Diggle was then chair of the project's advisory committee. He said: "Soon after work began it became clear that it was not possible to revise the Intermediate Lexicon; it was too antiquated in concept, design and content. It was better to start afresh by compiling a new lexicon.

“We didn’t realise at the time the magnitude of the task, and it was only because of advances in technology that we were able to take it on. We then had to appoint additional editorial staff and raise a huge amount of financial support. It took us over 20 years because we decided that if we were going to do it we must do it thoroughly.

“At the outset of the project I undertook to read everything which the editors wrote. I soon realised that if we were ever to finish I had better start to write entries myself, and for the last 15 years or more I was fully occupied with it and did little else – it took over my life.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Greek Lexicon takes a fundamentally different approach to its Victorian predecessor. While entries in the Liddell and Scott lexicon usually start with a word’s earliest appearance in the literature, the Cambridge team realised this might not give its original, or root, meaning. Instead, they begin their entries with that root meaning and then in numbered sections trace the word’s development in different contexts.

Opening summaries help ease the reader into the longer entries, setting out the order of what is to follow, while different fonts signpost the way, helping the reader to distinguish between definitions, translations, and other material, such as grammatical constructions.

̽��ֱ��team tackled countless other interesting and challenging words, including πόλις, which will be familiar to many in its English form 'polis'. Diggle said: “Our article shows the variety of senses which the word can have: in its earliest usage 'citadel, acropolis', then (more generally) 'city, town', also 'territory, land', and (more specifically, in the classical period) 'city as a political entity, city-state', also (with reference to the occupants of a city) 'community, citizen body'.”

“'Verbs can be the most difficult items to deal with, especially if they are common verbs, with many different but interrelated uses. ἔχω, (ékhō) is one of the commonest Greek verbs, whose basic senses are 'have' and 'hold'. Our entry for this verb runs to 55 sections. If a verb has as many applications as this, you need to provide the reader with signposts, to show how you have organised the material, to show that you have organised the numbered sections in groups, and to show that these groups follow logically one from the other.”

Professor Robin Osborne, Chair of the Faculty of Classics, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Faculty takes enormous pride in this dictionary and in the way Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press have aided us and produced it. It’s a beautiful piece of book making.”

“We invested in the Lexicon to make a contribution to the teaching of Greek over the next century. This puts into the hands of students a resource that will enable them access to Ancient Greek more securely and easily.

“It is hugely important that we continue to engage with the literature of Ancient Greece, not as texts frozen in a past world, but which engage with the world in which we live. There’s been continual engagement with them since antiquity, so we are also engaging with that history, which is the history of European thought.”

̽��ֱ��project’s attention to detail also extended to the Press and the typesetters, who took immense care to ensure that consulting the Lexicon would be an easy and pleasurable experience, right down to a specially-created text design. Diggle and his fellow editors inputted their entries for the Lexicon in xml, using a complex system of more than 100 digital tags to ensure each element was automatically rendered in the correct format.

This also allowed for a constant feedback loop between the editors, the Press and the typesetters, with proofs reviewed and corrected, and the style and content honed as work progressed.

Michael Sharp, the Lexicon’s Publisher, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Greek Lexicon is one of the most important Classics books we have ever published. It represents a milestone in the history of Classics, the ̽��ֱ�� and the Press. I am elated, relieved and immensely proud of the part the Press has played in supporting this project.”

Professor Diggle said: “ ̽��ֱ��moment of greatest relief and joy was when I was able to sign off the very, very final proofs and say to the Press ‘It’s finished. You can print it’. You can’t imagine what it was like, to realise that we had finally got there; I literally wept with joy.”

For 23 years a team from Cambridge’s Faculty of Classics has scoured Ancient Greek literature for meanings to complete the Cambridge Greek Lexicon, a monumental piece of scholarship and the most innovative dictionary of its kind in almost 200 years.

It took over my life

James Diggle

Sir Cam

Professor James Diggle

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