John Ayto

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1. David Crystal

   Author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, The Cambridge Factfinder, The Penguin Encyclopedia

2. Alan Davidson

   Author of The Oxford Companion to Food, The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy: Twenty Years of Food Writing, Seafood

3. Tom McArthur

   Author of The Oxford Companion to the English Language

4. Robert McCrum

   Author of The Story of English

5. The New York Public Library

   Author of The New York Public Library Desk Reference

6. Oxford University Press

   Author of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Third Edition, The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors

7. Editors of Chambers

   Author of Chambers Biographical Dictionary, The Chambers Dictionary

8. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

   Author of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

9. Bill Bryson

   Author of The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words

10. Quality Paperback Book Club Staff

    Author of QPB Dictionary of Ideas

11. Arthur Plotnik

    Author of Elements of Editing

12. Charles Panati

    Author of Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, Panati's Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything & Everybody

13. Anne-Lucie Norton

    Author of Dictionary of Ideas (Brockhampton Dictionaries)

14. Bernard Grun

    Author of The Timetables of History

15. Robert Hendrickson

    Author of The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins (Facts on File Writer's Library)

16. John Bartlett

    Author of Familiar Quotations

17. Eric Partridge

    Author of Usage and Abusage: A Guide to Good English, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, A dictionary of catch phrases, American and British, from the sixteenth century to the present day

18. Stephen Glazier

    Author of Random House Word Menu: New and Essential Companion to the Dictionary

19. H. W. Fowler

    Author of Fowler’s Modern English Usage

20. Eugene H. Ehrlich

    Author of Amo, amas, amat, and more: How to use Latin to your own advantage and to the astonishment of others, Nil Desperandum - Carpe Hunc Librum: Dictionary of Latin Tags and Useful Phrases