Samuel Johnson’s 300th Birthday
Today is Samuel Johnson’s 300th birthday.
After nine years of work, Samuel Johnson published a major dictionary of English words in 1755. One of the key features of A Dictionary of the English Language was that Dr. Johnson used quotations from books where a particular word was used to illustrate the word’s meaning.
Why should a law school be interested in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary and his 300th birthday? On the way to work this morning, I heard a BBC radio program (aired on NPR) about Dr. Johnson’s dictionary. On that show, the commentators discussed how Dr. Johnson’s dictionary is important to the United States Constitution because it was the dictionary most often used during the time the Constitution was drafted. Jack Lynch also refers to Dr. Johnson’s influence on documents related to the founding of this country in his 2005 New York Times article. For further reading on this topic, Henry Hitching’s book, Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary: The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World, looks promising.
Does anyone know of examples where legal advocates have cited Dr. Johnson’s dictionary to interpret the law?