Bergen Evans
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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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).
Another of his books, A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage (1957), produced an apparent spin-off: the television show The Last Word, which he hosted Sundays on CBS, from 1957 to 1959. Listeners were encouraged to send in questions that pertain to spelling, punctuation, usage, and pronunciation. These questions were put to a panel of experts from various professional fields. Sound recordings of broadcasts 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."
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.
