This is not really about phonetics, for a change. I have just been doing a bit of editing of the article on F R Palmer, for the sad reason that he died recently at the age of 97. Frank Palmer was a remarkable scholar, and was the founding father of the Linguistic Science Department at the University of Reading. I owe him a great debt of gratitude, as he gave me my first job as a Lecturer in Phonetics in 1968. He even went further and acted as my PhD supervisor! The department was an amazing place to work in the 1960's and 70's; Frank and his colleagues had built up a formidable international reputation, and many famous linguists visited the department.
When I looked up the Wikipedia article on him to check if anyone had noted Frank's death, I discovered that the article was badly written, factually inaccurate in places and generally inadequate as a portrayal of a great scholar. I have corrected the worst of the faults, but I hope that someone better qualified than me to summarize his career will step in and write something better.
UPDATE : Although I amended the Wikipedia article to include Frank Palmer's death, that edit has been deleted by a Wikipedia editor. Apparently it's necessary to quote a published source if you add information of this sort.
When I looked up the Wikipedia article on him to check if anyone had noted Frank's death, I discovered that the article was badly written, factually inaccurate in places and generally inadequate as a portrayal of a great scholar. I have corrected the worst of the faults, but I hope that someone better qualified than me to summarize his career will step in and write something better.
UPDATE : Although I amended the Wikipedia article to include Frank Palmer's death, that edit has been deleted by a Wikipedia editor. Apparently it's necessary to quote a published source if you add information of this sort.
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