Samuel Johnson’s Google Doodle on Monday is an irony of sorts where today’s Google Doodle honors the Father of Modern English Dictionary on what could have been his 308th Birthday. Born on September 18, 1709, Samuel Johnson or Dr. Johnson was an English writer, poet, essayist, literary critic and a Lexicographer who compiled the first modern dictionary of all times in the year 1755.
However, the world changed its way of knowing word meanings, their pronunciation and usage ever since Google was born.
Although, if we see it to the core, only the medium has changed from paper to digital but the idea at the core remains the same – compilation of English Word Meanings at one reliable place.
Samuel Johnson is referred as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history" by none other than the prestigious Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. As per his biography, it took nine years for Dr. Johnson to compile ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’.
It was not the first dictionary of the world however it was the first one to be of a quality that could not be challenged for its impeccable accuracy and carried witty explanations that could decipher the word meanings in the most entertaining way.
The man described his job of a Lexicographer as “A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words” and this is what the Google Doodle is playing across the globe today.
The idea of creating the most authoritative - ‘A Dictionary of the English Language’ was born in 1746 when William Strahan and Associates signed a contract with Dr. Samuel Johnson on 18th June 1746. The contract was sealed with 1500 guineas and Dr. Johnson was to complete the compilation in 3 years time.
Dr. Johnson was given a comparison for ‘Académie Française’ which around 40 scholars had compiled in 40 years. Johnson claimed that he could finish the project in three years. Samuel Johnson stated, "This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman." Although Dr. Johnson was not able to complete his work in 3 years but managed it in 9 years by working only afternoons single-handedly.
According to Bate, the Johnson’s 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."
Johnson’s dictionary had a far-reaching impact on the English language learners and was considered the go-to dictionary until the Oxford English Dictionary was completed almost a century and a half past in 1928.
Comments
0 comment