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But Friedman was more than an academic. He was an advocate for, and popularizer of, a radical right-wing economic ideology.

In today’s political and social reality, the University of Chicago’s establishment of a $200 million Milton Friedman Institute (in the building that has long housed the renowned Chicago Theological Seminary) will not be perceived as simply a sign of appreciation for a prominent former faculty member. Instead, by founding such an institution, the university signals that it is aligning itself with a reactionary political program supported by the wealthiest, greediest and most powerful people and institutions in this country. Friedman’s ideology caused enormous damage to the American middle class and to working families here and around the world. It is not an ideology that a great institution like the University of Chicago should be seeking to advance.

What makes an Oxford Dictionary?

People find dictionary-making fascinating. The 250th anniversary last year of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary was widely celebrated, and the recent BBC television series Balderdash and Piffle had a huge response to its call to viewers to help track down elusive word and phrase origins. But how are dictionaries written today? And how do you know that what is included in a dictionary is accurate and up to date?

Oxford Dictionaries are continually monitoring and researching how language is evolving. The Oxford English Corpus is central to the process and to Oxford's £35 million research programme - the largest language research programme in the world.

A corpus is a collection of texts of written (or spoken) language presented in electronic form. It provides the evidence of how language is used in real situations, from which lexicographers can write accurate and meaningful dictionary entries. The Oxford English Corpus is at the heart of dictionary-making in Oxford in the 21st century and ensures that we can track and record the very latest developments in language today. By analysing the corpus and using special software, we can see words in context and find out how new words and senses are emerging, as well as spotting other trends in usage, spelling, world English, and so on.