Most, but not all of you will have seen the following message, sent out to
all Essex staff today.
The University flag will be flying at half mast on Thursday 30 May,
as a mark of respect on the day of the funeral of Peter Wexler, Reader in
the Department of Language & Linguistics from 1967 until his
retirement in 1988.
A humanist funeral ceremony will be held at 1pm on 30 May in St Ann
& St Lawrence's Church, which is at the far end of Church Road, Elmstead
Market, followed by the interment at Wrabness. An obituary will
appear in a future edition of Wyvern.
I will be writing the obituary, but it will be too brief, at 250 words, to
do justice to Peter's life. I am planning therefore to do an expanded
version for Marjorie and the family, and indeed for anyone else who is
interested - it will be made available via the web. So please send me any
contributions you would like to make - they will not be wasted.
If you are planning to atend the ceremony at the church (which will last
about 30-35 minutes I understand) there may be an opportunity for some
poeple to deliver a brief contribution orally. I think this would be very
much appreciated and would enrich the ceremony, but Margaret Nelson from the
Humanist society who will be organising things, is concerned to keep within
the overall time schedule. So could you please let me know by Tuesday midday
at the latest if you like to make an oral contribution, and preferably send
me a text, which I can pass on to Margaret.
Meanwhile, if you would like to see a couple of recent examples of Peter's
writing, look at
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~wexlp/index.html and at
http://www.essex.ac.uk/lang/yab/greetings_earthlings.htm
I have begun to draft one element of the longer obituary - a Wexicon
(attached), inspired by Peter's own PerpLexicon. If you have any additions
to suggest, I'd be pleased to hear from you.
Phil Brew
Director, Year Abroad Programme
Language and Linguistics
European Studies
University of Essex
Colchester CO4 3SQ
UK
Room: 4.103
Tel: 01206 87 2187
Fax: 01206 87 2198
email: [log in to unmask]
Year Abroad web site: www.essex.ac.uk/lang/yab
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