Dictionaries and Rules
The History of the English Language
Course 1 · Chapter 8 · Dictionaries and Rules
By 1600 English had a written standard and a flood of new words. The next question was who would keep order. Dictionaries tried to list the words, and grammar books tried to say what was correct. This chapter looks at the first English dictionaries, Samuel Johnson's of 1755, Robert Lowth's grammar of 1762, and the sources' account of where two famous "rules" came from.
Hard words and first dictionaries
Wikipedia's A Table Alphabeticall article describes a 1604 English dictionary by Robert Cawdrey, published in London, considered the first monolingual English dictionary.
- Size: about 120 pages with 2,543 headwords in the first edition (the Johnson article gives 2,449 words; I show both). The fourth edition of 1617 had 3,264.
- Purpose: to explain "hard words" that spread with the printing press and the English Bible. The article quotes Cawdrey's aim of helping "unskillful persons".
- Content: very brief definitions, often a single word, working as synonyms.
- Survival: the only known surviving copy is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
The article on Johnson's Dictionary lists earlier works: Elyot's Latin-English wordbook (1538), Mulcaster's (1583) and Florio's (1598), the first to use quotations. The Early Modern English article read in Chapter 6 gives 1604 as the date of the first English dictionary, which matches.
Johnson's Dictionary
Wikipedia's article on A Dictionary of the English Language gives these facts:
| Item | What the article says |
|---|---|
| Commission | By London booksellers in June 1746, for 1,500 guineas |
| Time taken | Seven years, though Johnson had claimed he could finish in three; he worked largely alone, with clerical help copying quotations |
| Publication | 15 April 1755 (the page elsewhere gives 4 April for the folio volumes; both shown) |
| Size | A 42,773-word list, with around 114,000 literary quotations from about 500 authors, most often Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden |
| Method | Illustrated meanings with quotations, separated senses, added usage notes; his Plan compared usage to legal precedent, treating custom as the authority |
| Weak point | The article calls his etymologies weak by modern standards |
| Later influence | The OED reproduced about 1,700 of his definitions, marked "J."; it was translated into French and German |
The article says Johnson wanted to fix grammar, definitions and spelling for a growing reading public, and that earlier dictionaries were mostly glossaries of "hard words". It calls much of the work prescriptivist and linguistically conservative, with traditional spellings such as publick. It also says Johnson himself doubted that language could be fixed: the Linguistic prescription article quotes his Preface saying sounds remain too volatile and subtle for legal restraints, and notes his example of the French Academy's failure to stop change. Famous definitions include a lexicographer as "a harmless drudge" and excise as a "hateful tax", both from the article.
Grammar books and rules
Wikipedia's Linguistic prescription article defines prescriptivism as setting rules for preferred usage, and descriptivism, the approach of academic linguistics, as recording how language is actually used without judgement. It says the two overlap, and lists its caveats: standards often favour one class or region, prescription can present non-standard forms as mistakes, and rules become entrenched and slow to update.
Wikipedia's Robert Lowth article says he published A Short Introduction to English Grammar in 1762 to fill a gap, since simple textbook grammars were scarce, and that it stayed in standard school use until the early 20th century.
- Method: he criticised "false syntax", drawing examples from Shakespeare, the King James Bible, Milton, Pope and others. His grammar was shaped by Latin, which he admitted was problematic.
- Prepositions at the end of a sentence: he tentatively suggested this is inappropriate in formal writing, though he used it himself; the article notes Dryden expressed the same view in 1672. The Linguistic prescription article says his remark that it "sounds colloquial" later hardened into a rule.
- Other judgements: he judged whose for things improper and condemned a "Who should I meet" construction. The article calls his assertions "dogmatic" and says his stylistic opinions came to carry the force of law in schools.
Case study: the split infinitive
Wikipedia's Split infinitive article defines it as an adverb between to and the verb, as in "to boldly go".
| Date | Fact (per the article) |
|---|---|
| early 13th century | Layamon's Brut has a pronoun splitting the infinitive, possibly for metre |
| 14th century | Wycliffe's prose splits infinitives often |
| 1803 | John Comly's objection, the earliest the article cites |
| 1834 | An anonymous American writer advises against it |
| 1864 | Henry Alford's Plea for the Queen's English makes the objection widely known |
| 1890 | The term "split infinitive" is first recorded |
The article finds no prohibition in Lowth or in any text before the 19th century. Critics often cited Latin, where the infinitive is a single word, but the article notes little primary evidence that early critics actually relied on this. It says modern style manuals generally accept simple split infinitives, and that some guides still advise avoiding them in formal writing. The Linguistic prescription article gives the same 1834 advice and says the old prohibition persists.
Words to know
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Monolingual dictionary | A dictionary that explains words in the same language |
| Headword | The word listed and defined in a dictionary entry |
| Prescriptive | Saying how language should be used |
| Descriptive | Recording how language is actually used |
| Preposition stranding | Ending a clause with a preposition, as in "the man I spoke to" |
| Lexicographer | A person who writes a dictionary |
✏️ Try It Yourself
Think of the answer first, then click to check.
1. What is A Table Alphabeticall, and when was it published?
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Robert Cawdrey's 1604 dictionary, considered the first monolingual English dictionary, explaining "hard words".
2. Why do the two articles disagree about its size?
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The Table Alphabeticall article gives 2,543 headwords and the Johnson article gives 2,449; they do not reconcile them, so both are shown.
3. When was Johnson's Dictionary published, and how long did it take?
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1755 (15 April, with 4 April given for the folios); commissioned in 1746, it took seven years.
4. What was new about Johnson's use of quotations?
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He illustrated meanings with about 114,000 literary quotations from about 500 authors; the article says Florio's 1598 work was the first to use quotations at all.
5. What is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive approaches?
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Prescriptive sets rules for preferred usage; descriptive records how language is actually used without judgement.
6. What does the article say about Lowth's rule on ending a sentence with a preposition?
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He suggested it tentatively and used it himself; the rule hardened later.
7. When does the article say the split infinitive objection first appears?
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With John Comly in 1803; it finds no prohibition in any earlier text.
8. Why does the article doubt that Latin was the real reason?
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Critics cited Latin's one-word infinitive, but the article notes little primary evidence that early critics relied on it.