Word: oxfordized
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Berlin range from "the most brilliant man in the Western World" to "the wittiest" to "the best conversationalist." You have an uncomprehending respect for people who so describe him for you feel they belong to the inner circle, the practiced. The outsider suspects the significance of the torrent of Oxford language which pours forth from this round and rumpled gentleman but seldom succeeds in keeping up with his pace. Berlin himself observes that his audiences "first struggle desperately but then sink under, staring with glazed eyes." One intense lady became so desperate that she finally interrupted, "I'm sorry...
Berlin, who is a philosopher by profession and a Fellow of New College, Oxford, arrived at Harvard in January on what he calls his experiment in General Education. He's lecturing on the "Development of Russian Revolutionary Ideas" in the Regional Studies Program and assisting at the Russian Research Center...
Although he is modest about it, Berlin is well qualified in Russian studies. He was born in the Baltic city of Riga in 1909 and learned the language there. He moved to England as a boy and went to college at Oxford, where he later became a member of the faculty. He returned to Russia in 1945, however, for a year as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Moscow. Before taking the Russian post, he was with the Ministry of Information in New York from 1941-42 and then moved to the Embassy in Washington as First Secretary...
After assisting in the preparation of the report on the Marshall Plan Conference in Paris in 1947, Berlin returned to Oxford, his permanent location. Though Harvard wanted him for a year, he refused to be lured away from New College for more than one term. He is now living in Lowell House, where he has become something of a legend. Since only those sitting next to him can make any sense out of his speeding talk, there is no little scramble for the advantageous positions at High Table. His enormous popularity among Cambridge society, his three or four-hour conversations...
About his students here and at Oxford, Berlin says, "Very serious, very earnest, very earnest indeed, but only want answers. Don't care about method. Why do I bother leading them round in a maze. Want to know what's good, what's bad. Students in 'twenties drank too much, too gay, didn't work hard enough, but wanted problems. No rush, no short-cuts...