One older Johnson
Ten random facts about a historical figure
One could ironically call it the “Johnson Factor”: every other Johnson but this one Boris has disappeared out of people’s minds due to the Brexit referendum. However, there was one other famous namesake worth knowing about, as his work had a mayor impact on the English language as we know it today:
1.
Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous “Dictionary of the English Language” was published in 1755, contained 40,000 words and took over 8 years in research. (“If one by the word year mean twelve months of thirty days each, i. e. three hundred and sixty days; another intend a solar year of three hundred sixty-five days; and a third mean a lunar year, or twelve lunar months, i. e. three hundred fifty-four days, there will be a great variation and error in their account of things, unless they are well apprized of each other’s meaning.”)
2.
In the TV-series “Blackadder” the word “sausage” (“A roll or ball made commonly of pork or veal, and sometimes of beef, minced very small, with salt and spice; sometimes it is stuffed into the guts of fowls, and sometimes only rolled in flower.”) is missing from the book.
3.
In the recent episode of the BBC Series “SHERLOCK” the great detective calls his associate Watson his “Boswell” referring to the biographer (“A writer of lives; a relator not of the history of nations, but of the actions of particular persons.”) of Dr. Johnson.
4.
For Johnson H is for Ha, Haak, Habeas Corpus, Haberdasher, Haberdine… But since Greenaway we know that H is for House. (“A place wherein a man lives; a place of human abode.”)
5.
In the book in the definition of “Oats” Scottish people are compared to horses.
6.
The word “Odontalgick” (“Pertaining to the toothache.”) cannot be found in current dictionaries.
7.
BBC Radio Four started a Series in 2015 called “Boswell’s Lives” where this “time-travelling biographer” (speaker: Miles Jupp) talks about figures of the public sphere such as Boris Johnson and Maria Callas.
8.
Johnson had a cat named Hodge. (“A domestick animal that catches mice, commonly reckoned by naturalists the lowest order of the leonine species.”; dogs are not included: FUNNY, because Baldrick’s definition of dog is: “not a cat”)
9.
Dr. Johnson is starring as a character in loads of films and TV-shows. Two of them being “Boswell & Johnson’s Tour of the Western Isles” (1993) and “Boswell’s Life of Johnson” (1971).
10.
He is supposed to have said “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American”.
Hopefully you come out of this compilation more intrigued, interested and confused than you went in. (FUNNY, because none of those adjectives are listed in Johnson’s Dictionary.)
All definitions taken from:
