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* The Prologue to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary - 1755
page 1

One of the steps towards a more standardised language is without doubt a dictionary. By the early C18th various European countries were working on dictionaries of their own and in 1721 an English dictionary was produced by one Nathaniel Bailey. But Bailey's work was soon to be eclipsed by the work of Dr. Johnson.

In June1746 Samuel Johnson signed a contract with publishers to write a dictionary for £1575, from which he had to pay all his expenses including the wages of six assistants. He searched through many books by 'standard authors', finding examples of how they used each word. His assistants copied each sentence he chose, underlining the word in question and filing it under the right letter of the alphabet. Johnson wrote definitions for 43,000 words, illustrating the meanings with about 114,000 quotations.

The dictionary took an amazingly rapid nine years (40 members of the Academie Francaise took about 40 years to achieve the same thing in France). It has strongly influenced English dictionary-writing ever since.

The following passage is from the Prologue to Johnson's dictionary, published in 1755. Click on the 'audio' button to hear the passage read aloud. Please note that on slower connections there may be a small delay before the audio begins playing - please be patient!
Bullet Notice the words he chooses.
Bullet Notice the length and complexity of the sentences.
Bullet Notice the use of passive rather than active phrases (eg 'to be driven by fear' rather than 'fear drives them').

IT is the fate of those, who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths of Learning and Genius, who press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompence has been yet granted to very few.

I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a dictionary of the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected; suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance; resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance and caprices of innovation.

When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules; wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority…

Now look at the exercises on the next page.

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