A Dictionary of the English Language
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''A Dictionary of the English Language'', sometimes published as ''Johnson's Dictionary'', was published on 15 April 1755 and written by
Samuel Johnson Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
. It is among the most influential
dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
in the history of the
English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
. There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a group of London booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500
guineas The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...
(£1,575), equivalent to about £ in . Johnson took seven years to complete the work, although he had claimed he could finish it in three. He did so single-handedly, with only clerical assistance to copy the illustrative quotations that he had marked in books. Johnson produced several revised editions during his life. Until the completion of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' 173 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary. According to Walter Jackson Bate, the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable length of time".


Background

In earlier times, books had been regarded with something approaching veneration, but by the mid-eighteenth century this was no longer the case. The rise of literacy among the general public, combined with the technical advances in the mechanics of
printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
and
bookbinding Bookbinding is the process of building a book, usually in codex format, from an ordered stack of paper sheets with one's hands and tools, or in modern publishing, by a series of automated processes. Firstly, one binds the sheets of papers alon ...
, meant that for the first time, books, texts, maps, pamphlets and newspapers were widely available to the general public at a reasonable cost. Such an explosion of the printed word demanded a set pattern of grammar, definition, and spelling for those words. This could be achieved by means of an authoritative dictionary of the English language. In 1746, a consortium of London's most successful printers, including Robert Dodsley and Thomas
Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publisher, publishing company founded in 1724 in London, England, which is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman ...
– none could afford to undertake it alone – set out to satisfy and capitalise on this need by the ever-increasing reading and writing public. Johnson's dictionary was not the first English dictionary, nor even among the first dozen. Over the previous 150 years more than twenty dictionaries had been published in England, the oldest of these being a Latin-English "wordbook" by Sir
Thomas Elyot Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 149626 March 1546) was an English diplomat and scholar. He is best known as one of the first proponents of the use of the English language for literary purposes. Early life Thomas was the child of Sir Richard Elyot's fi ...
published in 1538. The next to appear was by
Richard Mulcaster Richard Mulcaster (ca. 1531, Carlisle, Cumberland – 15 April 1611, Essex) is known best for his headmasterships of Merchant Taylors' School and St Paul's School, both then in London, and for his pedagogic writings. He is often regarded as ...
, a headmaster, in 1583. Mulcaster compiled what he termed "a generall table f eight thousand wordswe commonlie use... etIt were a thing verie praise worthy...if som well learned...would gather all words which we use in the English tung...into one dictionary..." In 1598, an Italian–English dictionary by John Florio was published. It was the first English dictionary to use quotations ("illustrations") to give meaning to the word; in none of these dictionaries so far were there any actual definitions of words. This was to change, to a small extent, in schoolmaster Robert Cawdrey's ''
Table Alphabeticall ''A Table Alphabeticall'' is the abbreviated title of the first monolingual dictionary in the English language, created by Robert Cawdrey and first published in London in 1604. The work is notable for being the first collection of its kind. At ...
'', published in 1604. Though it contained only 2,449 words, and no word beginning with the letters ''W'', ''X'', or ''Y'', this was the first monolingual English dictionary. Several more dictionaries followed: in
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, English, French and Italian. 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 Edward Phillips (August 1630 – c. 1696) was an English author. Life He was the son of Edward Phillips, of the Crown Office in Chancery, and his wife Anne, only sister of John Milton, the poet. Edward Phillips the younger was born in Stran ...
' ''
The new world of English words ''The New World of English Words, or, a General Dictionary'' is an English dictionary compiled by Edward Phillips and first published in London in 1658. It was the first folio English dictionary. Contents As well as containing common words, th ...
'' came out in 1658 and a dictionary of 40,000 words had been prepared in 1721 by
Nathan Bailey Nathan Bailey (died 27 June 1742), was an English philologist and lexicographer. He was the author of several dictionaries, including his '' Universal Etymological Dictionary'', which appeared in some 30 editions between 1721 and 1802. Bailey' ...
, though none was as comprehensive in breadth or style as Johnson's. The problem with these dictionaries was that they tended to be little more than poorly organised and poorly researched glossaries of "hard words": words that were technical, foreign, obscure or antiquated. But perhaps the greatest single fault of these early
lexicographers This list contains people who contributed to the field of lexicography, the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. __NOTOC__ A * Maulvi Abdul Haq (India/Pakistan, 1872–1961) Baba-e-Urdu, English-Urdu dictionary *Ivar Aasen (Norway, 181 ...
was, as historian Henry Hitchings put it, that they "failed to give sufficient sense of he Englishlanguage as it appeared ''in use''." In that sense Dr. Johnson's dictionary was the first to comprehensively document the English lexicon.


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 Precedent is a judicial decision that serves as an authority for courts when deciding subsequent identical or similar cases. Fundamental to common law legal systems, precedent operates under the principle of ''stare decisis'' ("to stand by thin ...
(possibly influenced by Cowell): Johnson's ''Plan'' received the patronage of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield but not to Johnson's pleasure. Chesterfield did not care about praise, but was instead interested by Johnson's abilities.Lane p. 118 Seven years after first meeting Johnson to discuss the work, Chesterfield wrote two anonymous essays in ''The World'' that recommended the ''Dictionary''. He complained that the English language was lacking structure and argued: However, Johnson did not appreciate the tone of the essay, and he felt that Chesterfield had not made good on his promise to be the work's patron. In a letter, Johnson explained his feelings about the matter:


The text

''A Dictionary of the English Language'' was somewhat large and very expensive. It was printed in-folio, meaning that the pages were tall and nearly wide. The paper was of the finest quality available, the cost of which ran to nearly £1,600; more than Johnson had been paid to write the book. Johnson himself pronounced the book ''"Vasta mole superbus"'' ("Proud in its great bulk"). No bookseller could possibly hope to print this book without help; outside a few
special edition The terms special edition, limited edition, and variants such as deluxe edition, collector's edition or expanded edition are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as b ...
s of the Bible no book of this heft and size had ever been set to type. The
title page The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title (publishing), title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays onl ...
reads:
The words "Samuel Johnson" and "English Language" were printed in red; the rest was printed in black. The preface and headings were set in 4.6 mm "English"
type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...
, the text—double columned—was set in 3.5 mm pica. This first edition of the dictionary contained a 42,773-word list, to which only a few more were added in subsequent editions. One of Johnson's important innovations was to illustrate the meanings of his words by
literary Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, ...
quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
, Milton and Dryden. For example: :OPULENCE :Wealth; riches; affluence :"There in full ''opulence'' a banker dwelt, :Who all the joys and pangs of riches felt; :His sideboard glitter'd with imagin'd plate, :And his proud fancy held a vast estate." :--
Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...
Furthermore, Johnson, unlike Bailey, added notes on a word's usage, rather than being merely descriptive. Unlike most modern
lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...
s, Johnson introduced humour or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. Among the best-known are: *"
Excise file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when ...
: a hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the common judges of property but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid" *"
Lexicographer Lexicography is the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries. It is divided into two separate academic disciplines: * Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionary, dictionaries. * The ...
: a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words" *" Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people" A couple of less well-known examples are: *"Monsieur: a term of reproach for a Frenchman" *"Patron: One who countenances, supports, or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery." which some have understood to be a jab at his patron Philip Stanhope. He included whimsical little-known words, such as: *"Writative – A word of Pope's, not to be imitated: "Increase of years makes men more talkative but less ''writative''; to that degree I now write letters but of plain how d'ey's."" On a more serious level, Johnson's work showed a heretofore unseen meticulousness. Unlike all the proto-dictionaries that had come before, painstaking care went into the completeness when it came not only to "illustrations" but also to definitions as well: *"Turn" had 16 definitions with 15 illustrations *"Time" had 20 definitions with 14 illustrations *"Put" ran more than 5,000 words spread over 3 pages *"Take" had 134 definitions, running 8,000 words, over 5 pages The original goal was to publish the dictionary in two
folio The term "folio" () has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging Paper size, sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for ...
volumes: A–K and L–Z. But that soon proved unwieldy, unprofitable, and unrealistic. Subsequent printings ran to four volumes; even these formed a stack tall, and weighed in at nearly . In addition to the sheer physical heft of Johnson's dictionary, came the equally hefty price: £4/10/– (equivalent to approximately £ in ). So discouraging was the price that by 1784, thirty years after the first edition was published, when the dictionary had by then run through five editions, only about 6,000 copies were in circulation—an average sale of 200 books a year for thirty years. Johnson's
etymologies Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
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 prescriptivist. It was also linguistically conservative, advocating traditional spellings such as ''publick'' rather than the simpler spellings that would be favoured 73 years later by
Noah Webster Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education" ...
. The dictionary is in alphabetical order according to the eighteenth-century
English alphabet Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 Letter (alphabet), letters, with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word ''alphabet'' is a Compound (linguistics), compound of ''alpha'' and ''beta'', t ...
. In the eighteenth century, the letters I and J were considered different forms of the same letter; the same with letters U and V. As a result, in Johnson's dictionary the word jargon comes before the word idle, and vagabond comes before ultimate. In spite of its shortcomings, the dictionary was far and away the best of its day. Its scope and structure were carried forward in dictionaries that followed, including Noah Webster's ''Webster's Dictionary'' in 1828 and the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'' later in the same century.


Reception history


Initial reception

From the beginning there was universal appreciation not only of the content of the ''Dictionary'' but also of Johnson's achievement in single-handedly creating it: "When Boswell came to this part of Johnson's life, more than three decades later, he pronounced that 'the world contemplated with wonder so stupendous a work achieved by one man, while other countries had thought such undertakings fit only for whole academies'." "The ''Dictionary'' was considered, from the moment of its inception, to be Johnson's, and from the time of its completion it was ''Johnson's Dictionary''—his book and his property, his monument, his memorial." Immediately after publication "The ''Dictionary'' was enthusiastically written up in important periodicals such as the '' London Magazine'' and—none too surprisingly—the ''
Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1907, ceasing publication altogether in 1922. It was the first to use the term '' ...
''. In the latter it received an eight-page notice". Reviews, such as they were, proved generous in tone: "Of the less positive assessments the only properly judicious one came from
Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or ...
in the pro-Whig ''
Edinburgh Review The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929. ''Edinburgh Review'', ...
'' ... he wished that Johnson 'had oftener passed his own censure upon those words which are not of approved use, though sometimes to be met with in authors of no mean name'. Furthermore, Johnson's approach was not 'sufficiently grammatical'". Despite the ''Dictionary''s critical acclaim, Johnson's general financial situation continued in its dismal fashion for some years after 1755: "The image of Johnson racing to write ''Rasselas'' to pay for his mother's funeral, romantic hyperbole though it is, conveys the precariousness of his existence, almost four years after his work on the ''Dictionary'' was done. His financial uncertainties continued. He gave up the house in Gough Square in March 1759, probably for lack of funds. Yet, just as Johnson was plunging into another trough of despondency, the reputation of the ''Dictionary'' at last brought reward. In July 1762 Johnson was granted a state pension of £300 a year by the twenty-four-year-old monarch,
George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...
. The pension did not make him rich, but it ensured he would no longer have to grub around for the odd guinea."


Criticism

As lexicography developed, faults were found with Johnson's work: "From an early stage there were noisy detractors. Perhaps the loudest of them was John Horne Tooke ... Not content to pronounce it 'imperfect and faulty', he complained that it was 'one of the most idle performances ever offered to the public', that its author 'possessed not one single requisite for the undertaking', that its grammatical and historical parts were 'most truly contemptible performances', and that 'nearly one third ... is as much the language of the Hottentots as of the English'." "
Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...
summed up for the unbelievers when he pronounced at the end of the eighteenth century, 'I cannot imagine that Dr Johnson's reputation will be very lasting.' His dictionary was 'a surprising work for one man', but 'the task is too much for one man, and ... a society should alone pretend to publish a standard dictionary.' Notwithstanding Walpole's reservations, the admirers out-numbered the detractors, and the reputation of the ''Dictionary'' was repeatedly boosted by other philologists, lexicographers, educationalists and word detectives." Johnson's dictionary was made when
etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
was largely based on guesswork. His Classical leanings led him to prefer spellings that pointed to Latin or Greek sources, "while his lack of sound scholarship prevented him from detecting their frequent errors". For example, he preferred the spelling '' ache'' over '' ake'' as he wrongly thought it came from the Greek ''achos''. Some of his spelling choices were also inconsistent: "while retaining the Latin ''p'' in ''receipt'' he left it out of ''deceit''; he spelled ''deign'' one way and ''disdain'' another; he spelled ''uphill'' but ''downhil'', ''muckhill'' but ''dunghil'', ''instill'' but ''distil'', ''inthrall'' but ''disenthral''". Boswell relates that "A lady once asked him ohnsonhow he came to define ''
pastern The pastern is a part of the leg of a horse between the fetlock and the top of the hoof. It incorporates the Equine_forelimb_anatomy#Metacarpal_bones, long pastern bone (proximal phalanx) and the Equine_forelimb_anatomy#Middle_phalanx, short past ...
'' as the ''knee'' of a horse: instead of making an elaborate reply, as she expected, he at once replied, 'Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.'" On the same page, Boswell notes that Johnson's definition of '' network'' ("Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections") "has often been quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain." Other than stress indication, the dictionary did not feature many word-specific orthoepical guidelines, with Johnson stating that 'For pronunciation, the best general rule is, to consider those as the most elegant speakers who deviate least from the written sounds' and referring to the irregular pronunciations as 'jargon'; this was subject to coetaneous criticism by John Walker, who wrote in the preface of his '' Critical Pronouncing Dictionary'' 'It is certain, where custom is equal, this ought to take place; and if the whole body of respectable English speakers were equally divided in thir pronunciation of the word ''busy'', one half pronuncing it ''bew-ze'', and the other half ''biz-ze'', that the former ought to be accounted the most elegant speakers; but till this is the case, the latter pronunciation, though a gross deviation from orthography, will be esteemed the most elegant. Dr. Johnson's general rule, therefore, can only take place where custom has not plainly decided.' Nevertheless, Walker scrupulously followed Johnson's explanations of words, as did many contemporary dictionaries.


Influence in Britain

Despite the criticisms, "The influence of the ''Dictionary'' was sweeping. Johnson established both a methodology for how dictionaries should be put together and a paradigm for how entries should be presented. Anyone who sought to create a dictionary, post-Johnson, did so in his shadow." "In his history of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
'',
Simon Winchester Simon Winchester (born 28 September 1944) is a British-American author and journalist. In his career at ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Winchester covered numerous significant events, including Bloody Sunday (1972), Bloody Sunday and the Watergate S ...
asserts of its eighteenth-century predecessor that 'by the end of the century every educated household had, or had access to, the great book. So firmly established did it swiftly become that any request for "The Dictionary" would bring forth Johnson and none other.' 'One asked for The Dictionary,' writes Winchester, 'much as one might demand The Bible.'" One of the first editors of the '' OED'', James Murray, acknowledged that many of Johnson's explanations were adopted without change, for 'When his definitions are correct, and his arrangement judicious, it seems to be expedient to follow him.' ... In the end the '' OED'' reproduced around 1,700 of Johnson's definitions, marking them simply 'J.'."


Reputation abroad

Johnson's influence was not confined to Britain and English: "The president of the Florentine Accademia declared that the ''Dictionary'' would be 'a perpetual Monument of Fame to the Author, an Honour to his own Country in particular, and a general Benefit to the Republic of Letters'. This was no empty commendation. Johnson's work served as a model for lexicographers abroad. It is no surprise that his friend Giuseppe Baretti chose to make the ''Dictionary'' the model for his Italian—English dictionary of 1760, and for his Spanish dictionary nearly two decades later. But there are numerous examples of influence beyond Johnson's own circle. His work was translated into French and German." And "In 1777, when Ferdinando Bottarelli published a pocket dictionary of Italian, French and English (the three languages side by side), his authorities for the French and Italian words were the works of the French and Italian academies: for the English he used Johnson."Hitchings 2005, p. 224


Influence in America

The ''Dictionary'' was exported to America. "The American adoption of the ''Dictionary'' was a momentous event not just in its history, but in the history of lexicography. For Americans in the second half of the eighteenth century, Johnson was the seminal authority on language, and the subsequent development of American lexicography was coloured by his fame." For American lexicographers the ''Dictionary'' was impossible to ignore: "America's two great nineteenth-century lexicographers,
Noah Webster Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education" ...
and
Joseph Emerson Worcester Joseph Emerson Worcester (August 24, 1784 – October 27, 1865) was an American lexicographer who was the chief competitor to Noah Webster of ''Webster's Dictionary'' in the mid-nineteenth-century. Their rivalry became known as the "dictionary ...
, argued fiercely over Johnson's legacy ... In 1789 ebsterdeclared that 'Great Britain, whose children we are, and whose language we speak, should no longer be ''our'' standard; for the taste of her writers is already corrupted, and her language on the decline.'" "Where Webster found fault with Johnson, Joseph Worcester saluted him ... In 1846 he completed his '' Universal and Critical Dictionary of the English Language''. He defended Johnson's work, arguing that 'from the time of its publication, thas been, far more than any other, regarded as the standard for the language'." Notwithstanding the evolution of lexicography in America, "The ''Dictionary'' has also played its part in the law, especially in the United States. Legislators are much occupied with ascertaining 'first meanings', with trying to secure the literal sense of their predecessors' legislation ... Often it is a matter of historicizing language: to understand a law, you need to understand what its terminology meant to its original architects ... as long as the American Constitution remains intact, Johnson's ''Dictionary'' will have a role to play in
American law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as v ...
."


Folio and abridged editions

Johnson's dictionary came out in two forms. The first was the 1755 ''Folio'' edition, which came in two large volumes on 4 April. The folio edition also features full literary quotes by those authors that Johnson quoted, such as Dryden and Shakespeare. It was followed a few weeks later by a second edition published in 165 weekly parts. The third edition was published in 1765, but it was the fourth, which came out in 1773 which included significant revisions by Johnson of the original work. The ''Abridged'' edition came out in 1756 in two
octavo Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, 8º, or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multip ...
volumes with entries, "abstracted from the folio edition by the author", laid out as two columns per page. The abridged version did not feature the literary quotes, just the author quoted. This made it cheaper to produce and buy. It sold over a thousand copies a year for the next 30 years bringing "The Dictionary" to the reach of every literate home.


Replica editions

Johnson's ''Dictionary'' has been available in replica editions for some years. The entire first ''Folio'' edition is available on A Dictionary of the English Language as an electronic scan. As of April 15, 2021, A Dictionary of the English Language will become ''Johnsons Dictionary Online'', a project funded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
and created by a team of scholars at the
University of Central Florida The University of Central Florida (UCF) is a public university, public research university with its main campus in unincorporated area, unincorporated Orange County, Florida, United States. It is part of the State University System of Florida. ...
. This version is the first fully searchable online edition and will eventually include the 1775 folio edition. The Preface to the ''Dictionary'' is available on
Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital li ...
. In addition, a scan of the 6th (1785) edition can be found at the Internet Archive in its two volumes.


In popular culture

The compilation of Johnson's ''Dictionary'' was the main plot-line for an
episode An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a serial (radio and television), series intended for radio, television or Streaming media, streaming consumption. Etymology The noun ''episode'' is ...
of '' Blackadder the Third'' where Edmund Blackadder ( Rowan Atkinson), after confounding the scholar with a barrage of fabricated nonexistent words, tries to conceal the destruction of the dictionary's manuscript. Johnson had given his only manuscript to the Prince and it was presumably destroyed by Blackadder's apprentice dogsbody Baldrick. The manuscript is later found intact, only for Johnson to discover he had forgotten to include the word "sausage". The episode ends with Baldrick throwing the dictionary into the fire. "Dr. Johnson's Great Dictionary" appears as a plot device in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes film, '' The Pearl of Death'', starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. At the end of Chapter 1 of Vanity Fair by
William Makepeace Thackeray William Makepeace Thackeray ( ; 18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist and illustrator. He is known for his Satire, satirical works, particularly his 1847–1848 novel ''Vanity Fair (novel), Vanity Fair'', a panoramic portra ...
Becky Sharp disdainfully throws a copy of Johnson's ''Dictionary'' out the window. In Melville's ''Moby Dick'', the narrator mentions using Johnson's dictionary to aid him in his leviathanic undertaking: "Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me." (Chapter 104, The Fossil Whale)


Notes


References

* * Collins, H. P. (1974) "The Birth of the Dictionary." ''History Today'' (March 1974), Vol. 24 Issue 3, pp 197–203 online. * ** US edition: * * * * * *


External links


Johnson's ''Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language'' (1747)
at the Library of Congress. *Johnson's ''Dictionary'', first folio edition, 1755
Volume IVolume II
at the Pomeranian Digital Library.
Volume I
an
Volume II
at
Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...
. *Johnson's ''Dictionary'', sixth folio edition, 1785
Volume 1
an
Volume 2
at the Internet Archive. * *Web site
''Samuel Johnson Dictionary Sources'', an extensive examination of the sources of quotations in Johnson's ''Dictionary''.
*Web site
Johnson's Dictionary Online, a searchable version of the 1st (1755) folio edition of Johnson's ''Dictionary''
*Web site

*Article : ttp://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1449513,00.html ''Words count''from ''The Guardian'', April 2005. *Web page
''A Brief History of English Lexicography''
an HTML table. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dictionary Of The English Language, A 1755 non-fiction books 1755 in England Books by Samuel Johnson British non-fiction literature English dictionaries