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A Dictionary of the English Language, one of the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language, was prepared by Samuel Johnson and published on April 15 1755. The dictionary responded to a widely felt need for stability in the language. Calls and proposals for a new dictionary had been made for decades before a group of London booksellers (including Robert Dodsley and Thomas Longman) contracted Johnson in June, 1746 to prepare the work for the sum of £1575. Though he expected to be finished in three years, it took Johnson nearly nine years to complete. Remarkably, he did so singlehandedly, with only clerical assistance to copy out the illustrative quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson prepared several revised editions during his life.
Previous dictionaries
There had been several dictionaries written in Latin, English, French and Italian prior to Johnson. Benjamin Martin's Lingua Britannica Reformata (1749) and Ainsworth's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1737) are both significant, in that they define entries in separate senses, or aspects of the word. In English (among others) John Cowell's Interpreter, a law dictionary, was published in 1607, Edward Phillips' The new world of English words came out in 1658 and a dictionary of 40,000 words had been prepared in 1721 by Nathan Bailey, though none was as comprehensive in breadth or style as Johnson's.
Johnson's preparation
Johnson's dictionary was prepared at 17 Gough Square, London, an eclectic household, between the years of 1746 and 1755. By 1747 Johnson had written his Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language, which spelled out his intentions and proposed methodology for preparing his document. He clearly saw benefit in drawing from previous efforts, and saw the process as a parallel to legal precedent (possibly influenced by Cowell):
- "I shall therefore, since the rules of stile, like those of law, arise from precedents often repeated, collect the testimonies of both sides, and endeavour to discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long possessed whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words."
Johnson's version
The dictionary has a word list of 42,773 words. An important innovation of Johnson's was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden. Furthermore, Johnson, unlike Bailey, added notes on a word's usage, rather than being merely descriptive.
Unlike most modern lexicographers, Johnson introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. Among the best known are "Excise: a hateful tax levied upon commodities…"; "Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge…"; and "Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people" (it ought perhaps to be noted that the latter is arguably a legitimate observation, and moreover is not a significant departure from Bailey's "a grain, food for horses").
Johnson's etymologies would be considered poor by modern standards, and he gave little guide to pronunciation; one example being "Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity. It is pronounced coff". Much of his dictionary was unashamedly prescriptivist, and it was also linguistically conservative, advocating traditional spellings, for example olde, rather than the simplifications that would be favoured 73 years later by Noah Webster. His definition of "Fart" is well known.
In spite of whatever shortcomings it might have had, the dictionary was far and away the best of its day, a milestone in English-language lexicography to which all modern dictionaries owe some gratitude. Johnson's dictionary was still considered authoritative until the appearance of the Oxford English Dictionary at the end of the nineteenth century.
Sales
The first edition of the dictionary appeared in two folio volumes. As of 2002 a first edition might sell for US$25,000 to US$30,000, but many later editions and facsimiles have appeared. In 1995, in the UK, a facsimile of the first edition cost £200 (approximately US$300). Contemporary selections from Johnson's dictionary are available in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, ISBN 0802714218.A CD-ROM version is currently available for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh systems (N.B. For system 9, not for OS X) from Cambridge University Press, featuring the first (1755) and fourth (1773) editions, viewable in both facsimile and searchable text form.
Cultural references
Jonhson and the dictionary are the central theme of the third series Blackadder episode " Blackadder the Third (1987)", which centers around Jonhson's attempts to get George IV's patronage. When Baldrick accidentally uses Jonhson's manuscript as kindling, Blackadder must rewrite it in one night, lest him and Baldrick are found out by Johnson or his apprentices Samuel Coleridge, George Byron and Percy Shelly.
References
Books
- James L. Clifford, Dictionary Johnson: Samuel Johnson's Middle Years (1979)
- Henry Hitchings, Dr Johnson's Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World (2005)
- Jack Lynch, ed., Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selections from the 1755 Work that Defined the English Language (2002)
Online
- A Dictionary of the English Language on CD-ROM *
- The Johnson Dictionary project *
- "Words count" from The Guardian 2nd April 2005 *
- Brief history of English lexicography *
1755 books | Dictionaries | Non-fictional British literature
"A Dictionary of the English Language"