![]() Murray started his career by training as a teacher, becoming a headmaster in Scotland before moving south for the benefit of his first wife's health. He was to pursue these objects with consistency and fortitude over the course of his life. ![]() In many respects an autodidact, he left school in Scotland at the age of fourteen and a half (having already started to study four languages), and soon afterwards recorded on the flyleaf of one of his books, the first issue of John Cassell's serial publication Popular Educator (1852), the two mottoes "Knowledge is power" and Nihil est melius quam vita diligentissima, "Nothing is better than a life of utmost diligence". Murray had no formal philological training, but his lifelong interest in language and etymology developed from an early age. ![]() Murray also provided a model methodology and set the exacting standards that would make the OED the world-renowned resource it is today. He was personally responsible for "more than half of the English vocabulary, comprising all the words beginning with the letters A-D, H-K, O-P, and all but a fraction of those beginning with T." ![]() James Augustus Henry Murray (1837-1915) was the chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionaryįrom 1879, when he became chief editor, until his death 36 years later at the age of 78, James Murray devoted his life to the Dictionary.
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