Preface to the Dictionary

Question 1

When did Samuel Johnson live?

Answer 1

1709-1784

Question 2

What famous actor was once Johnson’s pupil?

Answer 2

David Garrick

Question 3

What year was his dictionary published?

Answer 3

1755

Question 4

How long did the dictionary take him to complete?

Answer 4

7 years

Question 5

By what epithet is Johnson typically thought of?

Answer 5

The Great Generalizer; but what gave his generalizations strength is that they were rooted in the specificity of self-knowledge.

Question 6

What is Johnson’s “Theme of all themes”?

Answer 6

The dangerous power of wishful thinking and the distortion of reality by false hopes

Question 7

How many words are in Johnson’s dictionary?

Answer 7

40,000 words; 114,000 quotations from English writers

Question 8

How does Johnson describe the language that he has tried to wrangle in his dictionary?

Answer 8

A tongue that has spread “into wild exuberance”

Question 9

From where does Johnson take his examples?

Answer 9

From English writers

Question 10

What is the word meaning “the study of the conventional spelling of a language”?

Answer 10

Orthography

Question 11

What two languages does Johnson see as the primary foreign sources of words? How did this impact he decisions about spelling?

Answer 11

French and Latin

If a word was derived from a foreign language, he used that language’s spelling to help fix its English spelling. If he was unable to tell if a word was of Latin or French origin, he defaulted to French as the more influential language.

Question 12

What are the two categories of etymology Johnson considers?

Answer 12

Primitive (he can find no earlier root than and English word)

Derivative (root in another language)

Question 13

What does “Teutonic” mean?

Answer 13

German

Question 14

What are Johnson’s two main etymological aids?

Answer 14

Johnson and Skinner

Question 15

From what period did Johnson attempt to mainly draw his examples? Which writer served as his boundary?

Answer 15

Pre-Restoration, especially the Elizabethan period; Sidney was his boundary for antiquity (tried not to go earlier than that)

Question 16

What four factors does Johnson cite as contributing to language change?

Answer 16

• Commerce (intercourse with strangers, traveling)
• Innovation and New ideas
• Changing Customs
• New Opinions

He points out that the conditions a country would have to be in for its language not to change would not be very favorable.

Question 17

What is, according to Johnson, the most prevalent kind of language change?

Answer 17

Cultural blending, including translation (“No book was ever turned from one language into another, without imparting something of its native idiom.”)

Question 18

On what specific topic does Johnson disagree with Swift’s “A Proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Ascertaining the English Tongue”?

Answer 18

Swift argues (perhaps satirically) that, while new words should be admitted, no words should be allowed to become obsolete. Johnson argues that this process cannot be helped - it is part of the natural evolution of language.

Question 19

Discuss Johnson’s relationship with bookselling/publishing?

Answer 19

Unlike other writers of the time, like Pope, who thought that booksellers and publishers who wanted to make money off of writers were detestable and low-brow, Johnson - whose father was a bookseller - believed they created opportunities for writers and worked closely with them for his entire career. All of his big projects - the dictionary, the edition of Shakespeare, and his Lives of the Poets - were commissioned by publishers.

Question 20

What contribution did Johnson make to Shakespeare scholarship?

Answer 20

In the past, Shakespeare had been criticized for not adhering to the classical unities. In his edition, Johnson praised Shakespeare for doing something better - adhering to real life, or nature. This idea would become influential for the Romantics later on.

Question 21

What was the process of compiling the dictionary like?

Answer 21

Johnson selected what he thought were the best works in the language to read. When he came across an excerpt that he thought illuminated a word especially well, he marked it up. He would then give the books to his assistants, who would put everything in order.