Susie Dent (born 21 September 1967 in Woking, Surrey) is an English lexicographer, best known as the resident dictionary expert and adjudicator on Channel 4’s long-running game show Countdown. As of January, 2009, she is the longest serving member of the on-screen team, having first appeared on the show in 1992.

Dent was educated at the Marist Convent in Ascot. She subsequently studied Modern Languages at Somerville College, Oxford and German at Princeton University, USA, after which she worked as a language teacher in the United States and for a German publisher before going to work for the Oxford University Press (OUP). She now works as a writer and contributor to discussions of language issues and words in the news: the Language Corner column in the UK MSN Encarta online encyclopedia site is one of these.

Published books

From 2003 to 2007 she was the author of a series of annual Language Reports for the OUP. The first was entitled simply The Language Report; it was followed by Larpers and Shroomers (2004), Fanboys and Overdogs (2005), The Like, Language Report for Real (2006) and The Language Report: English on the Move 2000 - 2007 (2007). The format of this publication was revised for 2008 as an A-Z collection of new and newly resurrected words. It was published in October 2008 as Words of the Year. In October 2009, OUP will publish her latest work: What Made The Crocodile Cry? 101 Questions about the English Language. Dent's book about dialects, How to Talk Like a Local, is scheduled for publication in March 2010.

Countdown on Channel 4

Dent has appeared on Countdown for over 16 years, having made over 2,000 appearances. Although the first of these was in 1992 (series 24), it was only in 2003 (series 49) that she took on her role full-time. She became a close friend of Carol Vorderman who was one of the show's presenters until 2008. In his memoir, Himoff! (2000), Countdown's late presenter, Richard Whiteley testified to Susie's overwhelming popularity with viewers.

Personal life

As well as her native English, she is fluent in French and German. She lives in Oxford with her husband, Paul, and her daughters, Lucy, born on 11 February 2000, and Thea, born on 22 October 2007.

References

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