Final Project – The Dictionary as a Technology of Authority

Full Transcript

David Foster Wallace’s essay, Authority and American Usage, isn’t something I would normally pick up and read (Wallace, 2005). It’s sandwiched amongst his mesmerizing tennis reporting, his famous piece on the ethics of boiling lobsters, and in typical Wallace fashion, is bursting with footnotes. It’s 60 pages exploring the authoritative nature of dictionaries, which doesn’t exactly sound riveting. But trust me, it is. This essay is not our topic of discussion, but it is the perfect introduction.
Early on, Wallace states “We regular citizens tend to go to the dictionary for authoritative guidance. Rarely, however, do we ask ourselves who exactly decides what gets in the dictionary or what words or spelling for pronunciations get deemed substandard or incorrect” (Wallace, 2005, p. 75)
Who does get to make these decisions? And what impact do these decisions have? Today, we’re going to look at the dictionary for the technological marvel that it is, by discussing one of its earliest famous implementations and its influence.
Samuel Johnson was a British writer, who in 1755 published a very important dictionary.
Johnson is likely not the character one might expect to be yielding the decision making power of correctness in the English language. He did not come from aristocracy, nor was he hand-selected by the monarchy. Johnson grew up relatively poor, the son of a bookshop owner. Though he was a voracious reader, he was not a notable academic. He left Pembroke College after 13 months due to financial constraints and his father’s declining health. (Hitchings, 2005, p.25) He eventually moved to London in search of opportunity, and quickly fell in love with the city.
He made a living writing for magazines, publishing biographies, and cataloguing book collections (Hitchings, 2005, p. 48).
His work brought him to the attention of London’s book sellers, who had a request – that he “compile a modern, authoritative English dictionary” (Hitchings, 2005, p. 49; Lynch, 2020). Historian Henry Hitchings contextualizes this period in English history as one of institutionalization, codification, and national monuments. (Alwyn & Kerr, 2009) The cataloguing and institutionalization of the English language was a logical next step.
This certainly wasn’t the first dictionary, let alone the first English dictionary. In fact, it wasn’t the first of anything. Many writers before him had compiled words with accompanying quotations and guidelines (Lynch, 2020, p. 143). It might be more appropriate though, to describe it as the best. In his book Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, Sidney Landau describes Johnson’s achievement not through his innovation, but through his “skillful and original execution” (Landau, 1984). In comparison to early dictionaries, Johnson’s work was expertly organized, accurate, and provided an accessible sense into the application of each word.
His knack for order, organization, and research may have evolved from his time spent cataloguing book collections – and now he had the opportunity to apply it to a much more grand endeavour.
The final result was a 42773 entry compendium of the English language, complete with not only definitions, but notes, descriptions and quotations. (Hitchings, 2005; Lynch, 2020) It wasn’t just a spelling reference, but a readable and insightful book that brought lexicography to the forefront of English culture. Lexicography being the art of the dictionary.
To put into perspective what earlier dictionaries were like, here is the definition for Consolation from Robert Cowdrey’s Table Alphabeticall from 1604, regarded as the first English dictionary: Consolation – comfort (Cawdrey, 1966; ElevenLabs, 2024).
And here is Johnson’s definitions: Consolation: Comfort; alleviation of misery; such alleviation as is produced by partial remedies. We that were in the jaws of death, were now brought into a place where we found nothing but consolations.
Bacon.
Against such cruelties,
With inward consolations recompens’d;
And oft supported so, as shall amaze
Their proudest persecutors.
Milton’s Paradise Lost, b. xii.
Let the righteous persevere with patience, supported with this consolation, that their labour shall not be in vain.
Rogers (Johnson, 1755; ElevenLabs, 2024).
As you can see, Johnson’s presentation is much more poetic, not only his definition, but his selected quotations. He brought artistry to what was a bland reference. “Go read a dictionary” is a tame elementary school insult, but in Johnson’s time it wouldn’t have been so absurd. This newfound approach would, by the 1800s, propel Johnson’s dictionary to a state of ubiquity. It’s said that Johnson’s dictionary was such a widespread reference, that one might ask for the dictionary at someone’s house with the same expectation one might ask for the bible. (Hitchings, 2005)
With such a wide and eager audience, it’s important to consider the effects Johnson’s dictionary would have.
You might be thinking, what does this have to do with David foster Wallace, so let’s circle back. Much of his essay, Authority and American Usage, discusses descriptivism vs prescriptivism. Descriptivism is an approach to grammar that aims to capture language as it is being used by its speakers on a daily basis objectively. Meanwhile, prescriptivism is more conservative, asserting that there is a correct and incorrect way of using language, and those rules should be documented, if not abided by. (Curzan, 2014)
The reality is that this dichotomy operates on a spectrum. Not every dictionary is urban dictionary, nor does it have to be the McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage.
So where did Johnson stand? Prior to beginning work on his dictionary, Johnson published “The Plan of an English Dictionary” in 1747, a manifesto for the enormous undertaking he was to undergo. He concludes with this “This, my Lord, is my idea of an English dictionary, a dictionary by which the pronunciation of our language may be fixed, and its attainment facilitated; by which its purity may be preserved, its use ascertained, and its duration lengthened” (Johnson, 1747; ElevenLabs, 2024). Johnson exhibited a clear moral conservatism regarding language, and wanted to ensure its protection (Gouw & Potgieter, 2020). After the 9 year endeavour though, Johnson’s introduction to the Dictionary carried a slightly more nuanced view (Johnson, 1755). It seems that during his immense undertaking, he began to realize the futility of language purity.
Despite his evolving views, one of the most remarkable parts Johnson’s dictionary is that, save for assistant scribes who performed some of the arduous copying, Johnson performed the curation single-handedly (Stamper, 2020). This provided him with unprecedented authority in dictating its use and correctness. Johnson got his words from a variety of sources, including other dictionaries and a mountain of literature (Hitchings, 2005). This collection process could be seen as an inherently descriptive practice, as he was capturing the language as it was being used, or at least written. However, the words Johnson chose to include—and the manner in which he included them—had prescriptive implications. Dr. Smith Rumsey’s lecture “What can we afford to lose” comes to mind here, equally influential as the words Johnson included in his dictionary are those he chose to exclude (Brown University, 2017).
Johnson’s word selection and definitions were rife with his personal and cultural biases. Given his conservative attitude towards English, it comes as no surprise that he omitted commonly imported French words. Included in the dictionary is the verb, “to Frenchify: to infect with the manner of France; to make a coxcomb.” (Johnson, 1755).
Words that were included were frequently the subject of Johnson’s explicitly stated judgement. He utilized usage labels to mark words as ‘low’, ‘barbarous’, ‘vulgar’, or ‘cant’ (Hudson, 1998). For example, he defines the word width as “Breadth, wideness. A low word”. “To Dumbfound. To confuse; to strike dumb. A low phrase”. He also showed favour to some words, such as “Ultimity: The last stage the last consequence. A word very convenient, but not in use.” Not in use! You have to credit Johnson, he was upfront about his biases. Sexism and patriarchal themes are also evident throughout Johnson’s definitions and quotation selections. The vast majority of his sources being from male writers, and many of his definitions referring to women served only to reinforce traditional gender roles (Hitchings, 2005). These are just a few examples of how Johnson’s small choices impact the language present in his dictionary.
It’s clear that Johnson’s dictionary arrived at a key time in English history, a time of cultural pride and preservation. As we’ve seen, its creation was an enormous undertaking, and despite his unconventional path, quirks, and biases, Samuel Johnson ended up being an incredibly successful curator. So what effect did Johnson’s dictionary have?
There are two schools of thought, the first, argued by historian John Barrell, is that Johnson’s dictionary codified English as spoken by polite society, or the elite, with the expectation that the rest of the country was incorrect and due to conform. Barrell sees Johnson’s prescriptivism as a direct reflection of his political leanings – conservative and intensely devoted to custom. He views Johnson’s various usage labels as rejections of working-class language, and a wholehearted embrace of the English elite. In doing so, it is implied that Johnson’s dictionary served to oppress working-class English people and culture in the pursuit of language homogenization.
The other side of the coin, presented by UBC historian Nicholas Hudson, is that Johnson himself was no member of the elite, and had little concern for codifying their linguistics. He argues that Johnson’s dictionary was, and I quote, “remarkable for its broad inclusiveness and, frequently, its defiance of polite standards”, and thus not a mere document of pandering to polite society, but a careful preservation of the English language as it existed at the time. Instead, he proposes that Johnson saw himself as beholden to truth and the science of lexicography, aiming to document, preserve, and bring order to English. Ultimately, he concludes that Johnson’s dictionary was a disappointment to the upper echelons of English society.
While the dictionaries subservience to certain classes is debated, it is undeniable that it was used as an instrument of English imperialism. An abridged copy of Johnson’s Dictionary was spread throughout British colonies, such as Australia and New Zealand, where they were used in classrooms (Hitchings, 2005). The dictionary was also enormously influential in the United States, where it fuelled a conflict of cultural identity in the newly independent nation. One looking towards its foundations, through Joseph Worcester’s dictionaries, and one aiming to distinguish itself as a new nation, as seen through Webster’s dictionaries. Both built atop of Johnson’s foundation. Webster ultimately succeeded, and is the reason American’s spell colour without a u, and traveler with only one L. (Hitchings, 2005)
The popularity of Johnson’s dictionary cemented it as a reference for the common English household. [simon Winchester oed] It became the template for subsequently influential English dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, and Webster’s dictionary, as well as dictionaries in other languages . I hope this podcast has demonstrated how what many of us perceive to be a relatively benign and simple technology, the dictionary, can have vast implications on questions of preservation, culture, and authority. To conclude, we’ll finish with a relevant quote from Wallace’s essay Authority and American Usage. “The lexicographer’s challenge now is to be not just accurate and comprehensive but credible. That in the absence of unquestioned, capita-A Authority in language, the reader must now be moved or persuaded to grant a dictionary its authority, freely and for what appear to be good reasons.”
Though this isn’t in reference to Samuel Johnson, I think it captures perfectly what an incredibly feat it was for such an unlikely character to not only lay the foundations of the dictionary as we know it today, but to make people trust it as well.

This podcast features the track: Palus Solitaria by Jangwa CC BY 4.0

References

Alwyn, R. (Director & Writer), & Kerr, P. (Producer). (2009, September 19). Samuel Johnson: The Dictionary Man [TV broadcast]. BBC Four.