Clive Upton is professor of English language at the University of Leeds, England, specializing in dialectology and sociolinguistics. He has also acted as a consultant on British pronuciation for the English-language dictionaries published by Oxford University Press, including the Oxford English Dictionary, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and the Concise Oxford Dictionary. He was also responsible for the British element of the Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (2001).

Upton's system for representing the vowels of British English is based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, following the normal practice of the late 20th century. He chose the customary presentation of these known as "qualitative-quantitative", which meant that short vowels are represented by a specific symbol, while long vowels are represented by the same symbol followed by the colon-like mark used in IPA to indicate their greater length. (Since long vowels in most modern European languages often have a slightly different sound, a strictly accurate phonetic transcription often requires a different symbol, but this would increase the complexity of the system.)

Clive Robert Benjamin Dunn OBE (born 9 January 1920) is a retired English actor, comedian and author, best known for his role as Lance-Corporal Jack Jones in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army.

Born in Covent Garden, Westminster, Dunn is the cousin of actress Gretchen Franklin. As a child, he almost died while having a supernumerary nipple removed.

Dunn was educated at Sevenoaks School, an independent boarding school for boys (now coeducational), in the town of Sevenoaks in Kent in south east England. After leaving school, Dunn studied at the independent Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, in London.

Dunn played small film roles from the 1930s onwards, appearing alongside Will Hay in the films Boys Will Be Boys (1935) and Good Morning, Boys (1937). After a break for service in the army with the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, during the Second World War, during the course of which he spent four years in prisoner-of-war and labour camps in Austria, he worked for many years in music halls and theatres. In 1956 and 1957, Dunn appeared in both series of The Tony Hancock Show and the army reunion party episode of Hancock's Half Hour in 1960. In the 1960s he made many appearances with Tony Hancock, Michael Bentine, Dora Bryan and Dick Emery, among others, before winning the role of Jones in Dad's Army in 1968.

Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American recording artist, actress, producer, and model. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most-awarded female act of all-time. Houston was one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. She released seven studio albums and three movie soundtrack albums, all of which have diamond, multi-platinum, platinum or gold certification. Houston's crossover appeal on the popular music charts, as well as her prominence on MTV, starting with her video for "How Will I Know", influenced several African American female artists to follow in her footsteps.

Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits. She is the second artist behind Elton John and the only female artist to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly "Top Pop Album") on the Billboard magazine year-end charts. Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a female act at the time of its release. The album was named Rolling Stone's best album of 1986, and was ranked at number 254 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.