John C. Catford

What a delight - all the way around - to have known your dad through his cousin, Jack Scott (Bill's dad) of Scotland and Hawaii, though the photos in the photo albums that we have that Ian's father took and then in meeting Ian at Lorna's and getting to go through those same photos and hearing the stories (and making a few up along the way) that went with those photos and, of course, in getting to visit with the "Lovely Lotte" and her family as well. What joy and now to have the pleasure of...

My thoughts and love for you go way way back, Ian. Love Mary Brown

I used Ian's office when he was on Sabbatical in 1969-70. One day he and I went to lunch at a fish 'n' chips shop operated by the former wife of Kingsley Amis called "Lucky Jim's." In the front window she had hung the Union Jack, but it was upside down. He noticed the error, pointed it out to her, and insisted that she take it down and rehang it properly, which she did. Who'd have thought the Union Jack has an upside?

Joe Palmer, Abercorn, Québec

I had the privilege of taking Dr. Catford's Phonetics class when I was an undergraduate Linguistics major at the University of Michigan. He was an excellent instructor, and I learned so much from him. My favorite classroom incident occurred one day when he was really immersed in his lecture. He backed up into the desk and quickly turned around and apologized to it.

Although I never had a course with Ian, he taught me by way of his book, Fundamental Problems in Phonetics. It made a big impression on me, especially the section on speech aerodynamics. Through all his published work he continues to have an impact on the field.

I greatly value our chats at professional meetings.

I met Professor Catford in Edinburgh in 1998 when he visited us on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Applied Linguistics in Edinburgh. He re-read his seminal paper on Applied Linguistics that he had originally presented back in 1957 as part of his inaugural speech as the first head of School of Applied Linguistics in Edinburgh. I found him a very warm hearted humble person who never stopped inspiring researchers. My condolences to Lotte, and the family whom I never had the pleasure of...

Professor Catford taught one of the first linguistics classes I took as a grad student at the University of Michigan, and his playful intelligence confirmed that this was a great field to be in, full of fascinating puzzles. I also remember fondly a talk that he gave as an overview of the sorts of things that got him into linguistics -- one of them being the shortwave radio handbook that enabled him to see the same thing written in different languages. I've enjoyed reading multilingual...