• Samuel Johnson born (18/9/1705)

    From Ross Clark@21:1/5 to All on Wed Sep 18 22:42:33 2024
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson

    "...made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist,
    moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and
    lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him
    'arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history'."

    But it's the lexicography that we're here to celebrate. The first really comprehensive dictionary of English (in two volumes, 1755), product of
    about ten years' work, with a small team of assistants.
    It's the definitions that Crystal most admires. He put together an
    anthology of them for Penguin Classics for the 250th anniversary. I
    haven't seen this; I have an earlier "selection" by McAdam & Milne
    (1982). By now there's quite a bit of it accessible online:

    https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/#
    and links at
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language

    He gives few etymologies and very little information on pronunciation -- perhaps for the same reason Henry Sweet a century later thought it was
    hopeless to try to give pronunciations in the OED.

    It is often said that English spelling has changed very little since
    Johnson's time. But he was not an innovator in this area:

    "Johnson was not at all interested in reform but rather chose what he
    regarded as the most common spellings.
    He was also concerned that homographs — different words that are spelled
    the same, eg bow (the weapon, etc) and bow (to bend the upper body) —
    could lead to misunderstandings. He therefore chose alternative
    spellings to reflect differences in meaning, such as stile (steps over a barrier) and style (of art, writing, etc). Before compiling the
    Dictionary, he himself had written '…the rules of stile, like those of
    law, arise from precedents…' (Plan of a Dictionary, 1747). However, one effect of all this was to make learning to spell English words even more difficult."

    https://www.spellingsociety.org/history#/page/9

    One example of a bad choice by Johnson which has been discussed here (or
    on a.u.e.) is the very peculiar spelling of "ache". It seems to have
    been influenced by his belief that the word was of Greek origin.
    Recently I have come across a couple of other examples of how Johnson's etymological misapprehensions influenced his spellings for the worse.
    Can't find them right now.

    Crystal's pick for a Johnsonian definition to exemplify "brevity,
    fulness and perspicuity":

    Sorry
    Grieved for something past. It is generally used of slight or casual miscarriages or vexations, but sometimes of greater things. It does not
    imply any long continuance of grief.

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  • From Aidan Kehoe@21:1/5 to All on Wed Sep 18 14:39:40 2024
    Ar an t-ochtú lá déag de mí Méan Fómhair, scríobh Ross Clark:

    [...] One example of a bad choice by Johnson which has been discussed here (or on a.u.e.) is the very peculiar spelling of "ache". It seems to have been influenced by his belief that the word was of Greek origin. Recently I have come across a couple of other examples of how Johnson's etymological misapprehensions influenced his spellings for the worse. Can't find them right now.

    Oh well, in matters of judgement you need to make a judgement, and as with anything, occasionally it will be wrong.

    Crystal's pick for a Johnsonian definition to exemplify "brevity, fulness and
    perspicuity":

    Sorry
    Grieved for something past. It is generally used of slight or casual miscarriages or vexations, but sometimes of greater things. It does not imply
    any long continuance of grief.

    That’s a good choice on Crystal’s part.

    --
    ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
    How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
    (C. Moore)

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