{"id":7138,"date":"2009-09-18T16:23:11","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T21:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7138"},"modified":"2009-09-18T16:23:11","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T21:23:11","slug":"samuel-johnson%e2%80%99s-300th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/09\/samuel-johnson%e2%80%99s-300th-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Johnson\u2019s 300th Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SamuelToday is Samuel Johnson\u2019s 300th<\/sup> birthday.<\/p>\n

After nine years of work, Samuel Johnson published a major dictionary of English words in 1755.\u00a0 One of the key features of A Dictionary of the English Language<\/em><\/a> was that Dr. Johnson used quotations from books where a particular word was used to illustrate the word\u2019s meaning.<\/p>\n

Why should a law school be interested in Samuel Johnson\u2019s dictionary and his 300th<\/sup> birthday?\u00a0 On the way to work this morning, I heard a BBC radio program (aired on NPR) about Dr. Johnson\u2019s dictionary.\u00a0 On that show, the commentators discussed how Dr. Johnson\u2019s dictionary is important to the United States Constitution because it was the dictionary most often used during the time the Constitution was drafted.\u00a0 Jack Lynch also refers to Dr. Johnson\u2019s influence on documents related to the founding of this country in his 2005 New York Times article<\/a>.\u00a0 For further reading on this topic, Henry Hitching\u2019s book, Dr. Johnson\u2019s Dictionary:\u00a0 The Extraordinary Story of the Book that Defined the World<\/em>, looks promising.<\/p>\n

Does anyone know of examples where legal advocates have cited Dr. Johnson’s dictionary to interpret the law?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Samuel Johnson\u2019s 300th birthday. After nine years of work, Samuel Johnson published a major dictionary of English words in 1755.\u00a0 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\u2019s meaning. Why should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-history","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}