Dr Johnson's Dictionary

Dr Johnson's Dictionary

by Henry Hitchings

John Murray, $116

For 150 years, until the advent of the Oxford Dictionary, English was defined by Samuel Johnson, and he still prevails in the US Supreme Court when lawyers argue about what the writers of the US Constitution really meant. Dr Johnson's Dictionary - The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World is about how the writer sought in his 1755 publication to get to the meaning of each of the 42,773 words he defines. Hitchings does a fine job evoking Johnson's London, then the largest city in Europe, and his inclusion of William Hogarth's Gin Lane (1751) captures what motivated the scholar to lift up his fellow men and instil in them the pride of being English. An opportunity to do something about the irregular spelling system was, alas, lost. Johnson even added to the problem and English is stuck with moveable and immovable, deign and disdain. We do, however, learn that the cherry was introduced to England in AD55, Alexander the Great drank from a cup that could hold 14 pints of wine, and that millipedes swallowed whole are considered to be a convenient laxative.