From: benlizro@ihug.co.nz   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson   
      
   "...made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist,   
   moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and   
   lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him   
   'arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history'."   
      
   But it's the lexicography that we're here to celebrate. The first really   
   comprehensive dictionary of English (in two volumes, 1755), product of   
   about ten years' work, with a small team of assistants.   
   It's the definitions that Crystal most admires. He put together an   
   anthology of them for Penguin Classics for the 250th anniversary. I   
   haven't seen this; I have an earlier "selection" by McAdam & Milne   
   (1982). By now there's quite a bit of it accessible online:   
      
   https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/#   
   and links at   
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language   
      
   He gives few etymologies and very little information on pronunciation --   
   perhaps for the same reason Henry Sweet a century later thought it was   
   hopeless to try to give pronunciations in the OED.   
      
   It is often said that English spelling has changed very little since   
   Johnson's time. But he was not an innovator in this area:   
      
   "Johnson was not at all interested in reform but rather chose what he   
   regarded as the most common spellings.   
   He was also concerned that homographs — different words that are spelled   
   the same, eg bow (the weapon, etc) and bow (to bend the upper body) —   
   could lead to misunderstandings. He therefore chose alternative   
   spellings to reflect differences in meaning, such as stile (steps over a   
   barrier) and style (of art, writing, etc). Before compiling the   
   Dictionary, he himself had written '…the rules of stile, like those of   
   law, arise from precedents…' (Plan of a Dictionary, 1747). However, one   
   effect of all this was to make learning to spell English words even more   
   difficult."   
      
   https://www.spellingsociety.org/history#/page/9   
      
   One example of a bad choice by Johnson which has been discussed here (or   
   on a.u.e.) is the very peculiar spelling of "ache". It seems to have   
   been influenced by his belief that the word was of Greek origin.   
   Recently I have come across a couple of other examples of how Johnson's   
   etymological misapprehensions influenced his spellings for the worse.   
   Can't find them right now.   
      
   Crystal's pick for a Johnsonian definition to exemplify "brevity,   
   fulness and perspicuity":   
      
   Sorry   
   Grieved for something past. It is generally used of slight or casual   
   miscarriages or vexations, but sometimes of greater things. It does not   
   imply any long continuance of grief.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)