Bergen Evans

Bergen Baldwin Evans (September 19, 1904 – February 4, 1978) was an American lexicographer, a Rhodes Scholar, a Harvard graduate and a Northwestern University professor of English. Evans became known as the question supervisor, or "authority," for the "$64,000 Question." His books include "Word-A-Day Vocabulary Builder" (1963) and the annotated "Dictionary of Quotations" (1993).

He served as radio host of "The Last Word", Sundays on CBS, from 1957 to 1959.cite web
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867808,00.html?promoid=googlep
title = Wide-Awake Sleeper
first =
last =
year = Monday, Aug. 05, 1957
accessdate = 2008-01-05
publisher = Time Magazine] Listeners were encouraged to send in questions that pertain to spelling, punctuation, usage, and pronunciation. These question are put to a panel of experts from various professional fields. Sound recordings of broadcast for 1957-05-18 and 1957-05-25 are archived with the Library of Congress. The New Yorker commented, "I'd take more pleasure in discussions schola'ly If Bergen Evans wouldn't laugh so jollily."cite web
url = http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1957/05/25/1957_05_25_035_TNY_CARDS_000256277
title = Speaking of Television: The Last Word
first = Phyllis
last = McGinley
date = May 25, 1957, p. 35
accessdate = 2008-01-05
publisher = The New Yorker]

He is also highly regarded as one of the early proponents of a movement that later came to be known as that of the skeptics and, to that effect, had written two of the earliest and most important works in the field, "The Natural History of Nonsense" (1946) and "The Spoor of Spooks and Other Nonsense" (1954).

Published works

"Comfortable Words". Illustrated by Tomi Ungerer. New York, Random House [1962] 379 p. illus. 24 cm.

"A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage", by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans. New York, Random House [1957] viii, 567 p. 26 cm.

"Dictionary of Mythology, Mainly Classical". Lincoln [Neb.] Centennial Press [1970] xviii, 293 p. illus. 22 cm.

"Dictionary of Quotations" / collected and arranged and with comments by Bergen Evans. New York, Delacorte Press [1968] lxxxix, 2029 p. 24 cm.

"Fifty Essays, edited by Bergen Evans". Boston, Little, Brown, and company [1936.] xii, 363 p. 19 1/2 cm.

"The Life of Samuel Johnson"; Boswell, James, 1740-1795 abridged, with an introd. by Bergen Evans. New York, Modern Library [1952] xv, [1] , 559 p. 19 cm.

"The Making of English". Bradley, Henry, 1845-1923. With an introd. by Bergen Evans, and additional material and notes by Bergen Evans and Simeon Potter. New York, Walker [1967] vii, 209 p. 21 cm.

"The Natural History of Nonsense", by Bergen Evans. New York, A. A. Knopf, 1946. ix, 275, x p., 1 l. 22 cm.

"The Psychiatry of Robert Burton", by Bergen Evans, in consultation with George J. Mohr, M.D. New York, Columbia University Press, 1944. ix p., 1 l., 129 p. front. (port., facsim.) 23 cm.

"The Spoor of Spooks, and Other Nonsense". New York, Knopf, 1954. 295 p. 22 cm.

"The Word-A-Day Vocabulary Builder". New York, Random House [1963] viii, 216 p. 24 cm.

"Your Car is Made to Last", by Herman Bishop and Bergen Evans. New York, Putnam [1942] xi, 186 p. 20 cm.

External links

* [http://www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/findingaids/bergen_evans.pdf Bergen Evans (1904-1978) PAPERS, 1921-1978.] biography is attached to the holdings inventory.
*findagrave|15962166

References