William Q. De Funiak

Who was William Q. De Funiak?

William Quinby De Funiak, who wrote as William Q. De Funiak, was an American writer and law academic who wrote what was probably the first systematic American-British, British-American dictionary. It was called exactly that: American-British, British-American Dictionary With Helpful Hints for Travelers and first published in the 1960s.

He was born in Alabama and traveled abroad to lecture and study and visited Britain a good deal. He noted the linguistic differences between American English and British English and decided to produce a detailed glossary to aid the "two peoples separated by a common language". As a regular traveler, De Funiak focused particularly on the needs of the business traveler such as transport, food, lodging and entertainment. The dictionary was last reprinted in 1978 and is still available, though the advice for travelers is now somewhat out of date. He died in Santa Cruz, California in 1981, he was 71 years old.