We are extremely sad to announce the death of our friend and colleague, Gerald (Gerry) Nelson, Professor Emeritus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who has died following a short illness on 20 October 2022.
Gerry was born in 1959 in Maynooth, Ireland, and studied at Maynooth University for his BA and MA. He received his PhD in theories of linguistic form in the 18th Century from University College Dublin, and worked in public libraries until he got what he referred to as ‘his big break’ in 1991, when he joined the Survey of English Usage as a Research Fellow on a three-year ESRC grant. This was followed by a two-year Leverhulme project, during which he contributed substantially to Sidney Greenbaum’s Oxford English Grammar. Later on, he took over the reins of three further editions of Sidney’s Introduction to English Grammar.
Gerry joined an ambitious project, the International Corpus of English (ICE), which became central to his academic life. This project, initially proposed by Sidney Greenbaum in 1989, would be a multi-centre international project. Every member of the network (some 20 teams) would create a corpus according to the same strict criteria, permitting English varieties to be meaningfully compared for the first time. Although this challenge later proved difficult, data would be collected synchronically within a short time window from 1990 to 1992.
Gerry and Sid updated Randolph Quirk’s Survey Corpus model of a corpus of both speech and writing, refining the design in a number of ways. There were to be more varied genres and contexts, texts would be shorter at 2,000 words each, and there were a number of practical stipulations on corpus participants, some of which were easier to apply than others! Crucially, every requirement would be applied equally to every variety of English captured by project teams – a task that proved challenging.
Gerry was the principal coordinator for the British Component of ICE, ICE-GB.
As well as obtaining recordings and texts, Gerry, the ex-librarian, had to obtain permission forms from a thousand participants, ranging from individuals to the BBC Copyright and Artists’ Department.
Gerry took on the process of data collection and archival, and it was Gerry and Sid, with Nelleke Oostdijk and Hans van Halteren in Nijmegen, who applied the Quirk grammar to the corpus. The two books Comparing English Worldwide (1996, edited by Greenbaum) and Exploring Natural Language (2002, authored with Sean Wallis and Bas Aarts) stand in testament to the huge contribution that Gerry made to the field of corpus annotation, and to the highly collaborative way of working that these projects represented.
Following Sidney’s death in 1996, Bas Aarts took over the reins as Director of the Survey, and Chuck Meyer in Boston initially coordinated the ICE project. Gerry remained the leader of the ICE-GB component, which was completed under his stewardship in 1998, with a second release in 2006.
Gerry was offered a Research Professorship at the University of Hong Kong in 2000, where he stayed for two years. In 2001, Gerry became the ICE project’s principal coordinator, a responsibility he undertook for fifteen years, finally handing over the project reins to colleagues in Zurich in 2016.
He returned to UCL as a lecturer and became the Deputy Director of the Survey in 2002. It was during his second period at UCL that he worked on the Diachronic Corpus of Present Day Spoken English (DCPSE) corpus, which was released in 2006 alongside the second release of ICE-GB.
Gerry worked at the Survey until 2007, when he left to take up a Professorship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). At CUHK, he left a significant legacy of research in corpus linguistics, through his work with colleagues and hundreds of undergraduate and postgraduate students. While at CUHK, Gerry organized the 37th International Computer Archive of Modern Medieval English (ICAME) conference, which was held in Hong Kong from 25-29 May, 2016. He also continued to contribute to the ICE project, attracting numerous PhD students to CUHK to conduct research under his supervision using the ICE corpus. Gerry held an Emeritus Professorship at CUHK after his retirement in 2020.
Under Gerry’s stewardship, the ICE project continued to grow, despite the usual problems of funding. Gerry was the principal expert advising ICE teams around the world on their collection and annotation strategies, applying a healthy dose of humour and pragmatism to the inevitable challenges that corpus building in multiple jurisdictions by teams with limited resources inevitably represents. He was very well-known internationally, especially in the circles of scholars working on World Englishes.
Gerry was looking forward to further collaborations following his retirement. He continued to have a close relationship with his English Department colleagues at CUHK and UCL, and it was a terrible shock for all of us to hear of his untimely death in October 2022.
Tributes to Gerry
Prof Jette Hansen Edwards, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
Gerry was a wonderful scholar, colleague and teacher and made an immense contribution to the Department of English at CUHK over more than a decade. We were deeply saddened to hear of his passing and send our deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Prof Bas Aarts, University College London (UCL)
Gerry worked for many years in the Survey of English Usage as a researcher on various projects, such as the British component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB) and the Diachronic Corpus of Present Day Spoken English (DCPSE). His contributions to the Survey’s work have been invaluable, but his importance to the wider field of corpus linguistics should also be mentioned, and will not be forgotten. Gerry also worked as a lecturer in the English Department at UCL where he taught undergraduate students and postgraduate students. He was a quiet man, but behind his calm exterior there lay a lively and intellectual mind, with a wonderful deadpan sense of humour. The last time I saw Gerry was in 2016, when he organised the ICAME conference in Hong Kong of which I have very fond memories. I will miss Gerry as a friend and scholar.
Prof Chuck Meyer, University of Massachusetts Boston (retd)
I first met Gerry on a visit to the Survey of English Usage to do some corpus based work on appositions in English. I liked Gerry immediately. He was very shy and self-effacing, but when it came time to help me with my research, he was very helpful, as he knew the ins and outs of corpus-based research. I was quite sad to hear of his passing, but will always remember him as the kind, generous, and very knowledgeable person that he was.
Sean Wallis, UCL
Gerry will be sorely missed by all those who knew him. I worked closely with Gerry in the completion of ICE-GB. Among other things Gerry was a research collaborator par excellence: he knew that research makes progress through the collaboration of many different perspectives, and the ICE-GB project was a classic example of this. I think it is fair to say that the quality of the corpus and its linguistic annotation was due to his stewardship in particular. Even twenty years later the corpus is still world-leading for grammar research.
I remember his wry good humour and his reluctance to leave us, but the opportunity to move to Hong Kong was ultimately too good to turn down. Like Bas, I did visit him in Hong Kong for a conference, and I well remember his flat on the 60-something’th floor!
Prof Cathy G.P. Zhang, China Conservatory of Music
I, Cathy, one of Gerry’s most recent and the oldest PhD student, was extremely saddened to learn of the passing of my beloved supervisor. Prof. Nelson, as I used to call him at CUHK, was not a large man, yet he was such a great mountain to lean on whenever we encountered difficulties in our study and research. Prof. Nelson, as I experienced in our communication, was such a silent person economical with words, yet he could always convey the necessary message and get things done in time. Prof. Nelson, as I witnessed as the tutor of his two courses, was a solemn-looking man, yet he was adored by his undergraduate classes not only because of his succinct teaching style but also his humor. As I often boasted to others: “Many professors teach knowledge, my supervisor Prof. Nelson teaches wisdom.” He was such a knowledgeable professor and wise person! As his student, I will be grateful to him and remember him forever! Also I’d like to give my regards to his parents and other relatives. May you rest in peace, my dear Professor Nelson!
Prof Jane Jackson, CUHK (retd)
For many years, Gerry and I worked together as applied linguists in the English Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In the summer of 2020, we both retired full of plans for post-retirement (post-COVID) life. In October, I was shocked to learn of his sudden passing! I will always remember his warm sense of humor and quick smile in our meetings, his unswerving dedication to his students, and his deep passion for applied linguistics, especially corpus linguistics. In particular, Gerry made a significant, unique contribution to the advancement of research and practice in this area of study. He will be greatly missed and never forgotten by many in Hong Kong and well beyond. RIP, Gerry.
Vijay Bhatia, CUHK
Sad to hear about the passing away of one of the giants in the field! He will always be remembered for his valuable contribution to the academy. May his soul rest in peace in heaven!
Chi Wui Ng, CUHK
I have just realized that my former supervisor Professor Gerald Nelson (Emeritus Professor, CUHK English Department) had passed away. I am honored to be Professor Nelson’s last supervisee as well as one of the students in his last corpus linguistics class. Even after his retirement, it was still kind of him to be my referee and nominate me for the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship. I am absolutely grateful for that. I will definitely pass on his knowledge on Englisg grammar as well as corpus linguistics and make good use of the International Corpus of English, one important legacy that he left for us, to conduct meaningful research. Whenever I help review manuscripts that claim to use corpus linguistics as the research methodology yet with merely a random collection of texts, I instantly recall Professor Nelson’s words: never attempt to build a corpus.
Dr Suzanne Wong, CUHK
Dear Professor Nelson, It has been my honour to have you as my PhD thesis supervisor. I am forever grateful for the inspiration, guidance and generous help that you gave me during the process. I learned so much from you, and I will always remember those afternoons sitting in your office talking about transitivity, passive voice, English grammar, and your niece, whom you were so fond and so proud of. When we emailed over this past summer, I said I would like to go to Lamma to pay you a visit. You even said you would buy me lunch at the Bookworm Cafe. It breaks my heart that I didn’t make it to Lamma and we didn’t have that lunch. How I wish we could still make that happen… I will keep you and what you taught me in my heart. I will miss you dearly. Rest in peace. My deepest condolences. Suzanne Wong
Jason Gleckman, CUHK
I’ve known Gerry for fifteen years, since he joined the English Department at CUHK. He was a great colleague and felt at home in Hong Kong. Gerry was a Linguist, but also a great fan of the arts, and I enjoyed talking with him about local stage productions and other things, such as growing up in the 1960s – USA and Ireland, both different then. Gerry was an alert and incisive speaker in all his professional encounters, such as Board meetings and hiring interviews. He also had a great sense of humor, and I’d like to think I caught most of his jokes, however dry. I enjoyed getting a smile out of him, but he did parse those out carefully. It is sad that he had health problems, and I was hoping to see him more often, on Lamma, in our mutual retirement. But I’m sure Gerry had enough spirit to leave something of himself both here and Hong Kong, and also in Ireland. I really will miss him.
Smile Q. Xu, CUHK
I’m Smile Xu, Prof. Nelson’s former PhD student at CUHK. I still can’t believe that Prof. Nelson has left us for more than one month. To me, he was not only a wonderful supervisor, but also a very lovely friend. A lot of precious memories flood to my mind as if he was still with us. The first time I had a meeting with him at his office in 2011, he asked me who compiled ICE-GB. I was such a fool then that I blurted out another professor’s name. He smiled, shook his head, and pointed to himself. Without saying a word, he let me know that I definitely needed to study harder. Later on, I worked on many projects using ICE-GB under the guidance of Prof. Nelson, who provided me with abundant support and encouragement. His constant reassurance of my research, like “very interesting”, “very good”, made me a more confident researcher. He was such a responsible supervisor that whenever we asked him for help, he was always there. How I wish we could go back to the good old times when we all gathered around a large table talking happily and eating roast Beijing duck, when he told us that eyes are more important than research, and when he patted my shoulder asking me to take it easy. We miss you! May your soul rest in peace, our dearest Prof. Nelson!
Zeping Huang
I was Prof. Nelson’s PhD student back from 2010 to 2013. My last email to him was in 2019 when CUHK turned into a battlefield during the protests. I didn’t know he still stayed in Hong Kong after retirement and was planning to write him before this Christmas, but it was too late… Prof. Nelson has left us, but his legacy will never leave us — a witty, humorous, and unconventional scholar and linguist. I still vividly remember his lectures on Semantics and Pragmatics, Grammatical Structures, and Corpus Linguistics. Most of the time when he was telling a joke in the lecture, his face was always looking serious and stern which added more humor to the jokes. Though he seldom smiled, he made others around him often smile and have a good laugh. We will miss you, our beloved Prof. Nelson! May you rest in peace.
Ivy Wong, Hong Kong Shue Yan University
Prof Nelson was a man of few words but his teaching and wisdom have made and will continue to make great impact on all his students. Some of his best sayings are: 1. Language isn’t as dynamic as everybody else thinks, 2. You don’t need a lot of data, but you must have a robust methodology, 3. I don’t like expressions like “last but not least”, redundant, 4. Don’t compile a corpus, get a life! At my MPhil defense, he asked “How do you define a preposition?” I thought I gave a good answer because I followed what other cognitive linguists said. Then he said “Don’t follow them slavishly.” He was so wise, so honest, so critical, and most importantly so loving. He took many students, myself included, under his wings. I will never forget that one afternoon sitting in your office and discussing preposition senses, and when I successfully “challenged” you for the first time, you smiled. Thank you Prof. Nelson.
Jason Hung, CUHK
Professor Nelson was my first teacher in the Department of English. His expertise in corpus linguistics and English grammar had contributed to the fields and had inspired every one of his students. I was saddened to learn his passing and am sorry for all our loss. I am thankful for all his kindness and advice and will always remember the life lessons that he taught us. May his soul rest in peace.
Gavin Bui, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong
It has always been an immense blessing for me to serve as Prof. Nelson’s teaching assistant for his English Grammatical Structure course from 2007 to 2010. I was doing my PhD at the Chinese University of Hong Kong then, and working with Prof. Nelson in teaching as well as helping him with the ICE conference and workshops had a major influence on my later academic career. Prof. Nelson’s profound knowledge, unparalleled ability to turn “boring” stuff into fun in teaching, and wisdom on matters beyond academia are always on my mind. He is a role model for me. He will always be dearly missed. Rest in peace, Prof. Nelson!
Benjamin Lukoff
I’m so sorry to hear this news. I met Gerry during my time studying toward an MA in modern English language (now English linguistics) in 1999-2000. I remember him making helpful and encouraging comments on the papers I wrote as part of the course and am glad to have had the chance to work with him even in that limited capacity. May his memory be for a blessing.
Lexi Li, Guangzhou City University of Technology
I am Lexi Li, the last PhD student of Professor Nelson. When sadness is deep, there are no words to describe it. Professor Nelson was the wisest, warmest, and most decent person I know in my whole life. For me, he walked on water. I wish he could read this somehow because I never get to tell him how much he meant to me and how much I am grateful for what he has done for me.
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UCL Survey of English Usage 