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. 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 in the pro-Whig 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
Dictionarys 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. 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 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 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 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,
Simon Winchester 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.'." In 2005, the
Royal Mint issued a
commemorative fifty pence coin celebrating the 250th anniversary of the dictionary's publication.
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." Further, "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."
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." "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, [it] has 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." == Folio and abridged editions ==