Alfred C. Gimson

Who was Alfred C. Gimson?

Alfred Charles Gimson was an English phonetician. He was known to generations of students and colleagues simply as 'Gim'.

Gimson was educated at Emanuel School London, and University College London, where later in 1966 he became Professor of Phonetics, and in 1971 head of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics.

He was a pupil and colleague of Daniel Jones, and is known for having updated and extended Jones’s description of standard British English pronunciation. Through his Introduction to the Pronunciation of English, first published in 1962, Gimson became an authority on Received Pronunciation. He succeeded Jones as editor of the English Pronouncing Dictionary, making significant changes to its content and presentation.