If I may quote from my 2018 observance of his birthday:

July 16 - Otto Jespersen (1860)
I bought his "Growth and Structure of the English Language" (1905)
from the same guy who sold me Sapir's Language (1921), both great books
still in print decades after their first appearance. Late in life I
acquired his seven-volume historical grammar of Modern English. But his interests ranged very widely; the titles "Language: Its Nature,
Development and Origin" and "Mankind, Nation and Individual from a
Linguistic Point of View" give some idea. Also an enthusiast for
international auxiliary languages (Ido, Novial).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Jespersen

Crystal thinks Jespersen was the first linguist to publish a full
autobiography (A Linguist's Life, 1938), and that it is a very good
read. I think I have read it, and I think I agree. Trouble is, I
sometimes get him confused with a near-contemporary Danish linguist,
Holger Pedersen (1867-1953), perhaps most famous for coining the name "Nostratic".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Pedersen_(linguist)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-04-30 09:23:32 +0000, Ross Clark said:

If I may quote from my 2018 observance of his birthday:

No one will care in the slightest about this, but Jesperson died on the
day on which my in-laws were married.

July 16 - Otto Jespersen (1860)
I bought his "Growth and Structure of the English Language" (1905)
from the same guy who sold me Sapir's Language (1921), both great books
still in print decades after their first appearance. Late in life I
acquired his seven-volume historical grammar of Modern English. But his interests ranged very widely; the titles "Language: Its Nature,
Development and Origin" and "Mankind, Nation and Individual from a
Linguistic Point of View" give some idea. Also an enthusiast for international auxiliary languages (Ido, Novial).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Jespersen

Crystal thinks Jespersen was the first linguist to publish a full autobiography (A Linguist's Life, 1938), and that it is a very good
read. I think I have read it, and I think I agree. Trouble is, I
sometimes get him confused with a near-contemporary Danish linguist,
Holger Pedersen (1867-1953), perhaps most famous for coining the name "Nostratic".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Pedersen_(linguist)

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)