Beyond Prescription: Re-evaluating Johnson's Dictionary and the Politics of 'Low' Language
Academic Details
Name: Sagar Chavda
Roll No.: 26
Enrollment No.: 5108250008
Sem.: 01
Batch: 2025-2027
E mail: sagarchavda.v@gmail.com
Assignment Details
Paper Name: History of English Literature - From 1350 to 1900
Paper No.: 105A
Topic: Beyond Prescription: Re-evaluating Johnson's Dictionary and the Politics of 'Low' Language
Submitted To: Smt. S.B. Gardi, Department of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Submitted Date: November 10, 2025
Words : 2613
Characters : 17774
This blog is written to digitally present and document my semester-end assignments.
Table of Content
Research Question
Hypothesis
Abstract
Introduction
The Prescriptive Ideal vs. Lexicographical Reality
"Bubbled, Bamboozled, and Bit": Johnson's Hospitality to "Low" Words
Reason, Analogy, and the "Genius of the Tongue"
Conclusion
Works Cited
Research Question
To what extent does Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, despite its author's stated prescriptive intentions, demonstrate a descriptive and inclusive approach to "low" and colloquial language, and what underlying scholarly principles guided this practice?
Hypothesis
Johnson's Dictionary will reveal a significant discrepancy between his explicitly prescriptive theoretical statements and his actual lexicographical practice. It is hypothesized that, contrary to the popular image of him as a linguistic authoritarian serving the upper class, Johnson's dictionary extensively includes and often treats with appreciation "low," "cant," and "vulgar" words. This inclusivity is posited to stem not from a lack of judgment, but from an independent scholarly standard rooted in reason, etymology, and the "analogy" of the English language, rather than the "polite" usage of the aristocracy or a desire to suppress lower-class idioms.
Abstract
Samuel Johnson's 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language is popularly cemented in the cultural imagination as a monument of authoritarian prescription, an attempt by the "Great Cham" to "fix" the language and purge it of impurities (Siebert). This paper argues that this interpretation, while fueled by Johnson's own polemical Preface, mistakes his complex scholarly project for simple class prejudice. Drawing on the critical analyses of Donald T. Siebert and Nicholas Hudson, this study demonstrates that Johnson's lexicographical practice was far more inclusive and descriptive than his prescriptive theory suggests. While Johnson did apply usage labels, his Dictionary is, in fact, "remarkably receptive" (Siebert) to "low bad" words, colloquialisms, and neologisms, often including them with appreciative illustrations. Furthermore, as Hudson argues, Johnson's ultimate standard was not the "polite" usage of the aristocracy, which he actively defied, but an independent, scholarly criterion based on reason, etymology, and "the genius of our tongue" (Hudson). Johnson emerges not as an instrument of "class oppression," but as a complex scholar who balanced a reverence for linguistic history with a profound "zest for earthy language" (Hudson; Siebert).
Introduction
By reputation, the most prescriptive of English lexicographers is Samuel Johnson (Siebert). The "Great Cham of Literature" is widely perceived to have begun his career as the "Great Cham of Lexicography," a linguistic autocrat thundering from his Dictionary such judgments as "Shambling... A low bad word" or "Lesser... A barbarous corruption of less, formed by the vulgar" (Johnson). This image has been solidified by a prominent group of studies portraying Johnson's work as a tool of social and political control, "an instrument for suppressing lower-class idioms" and for authorizing the language of the "ruling élite" as the only "proper" English (Hudson). Critics such as John Barrell, Olivia Smith, and Tony Crowley have argued that Johnson's "authoritarian politics" led him to support "class divisions" by rejecting the "fugitive cant" of the "laborious and mercantile part of the people" in favor of the language of "gentlemen" (Hudson). This interpretation seems to find its strongest proof in Johnson's own theoretical writings, particularly the 1747 Plan of an English Dictionary and the 1755 Preface, where he laments the "degeneration" of the tongue and vows to "correct or proscribe" its improprieties (Siebert; Hudson).
However, this paper will argue that the popular image of "Dictionary Johnson" is a significant misreading that conflates his prescriptive theory with his far more inclusive and descriptive practice. While Johnson's pronouncements were often conservative, a "comprehensive inspection of the Dictionary" (Siebert) reveals a lexicographer who was "usually quite hospitable to neologisms and the colloquial language of his day" (Siebert). Synthesizing the detailed textual evidence presented by Donald T. Siebert in "Bubbled, Bamboozled, and Bit" and the political-philosophical analysis of Nicholas Hudson in "Johnson's 'Dictionary' and the Politics of 'Standard English'," this paper will demonstrate that Johnson's Dictionary is not an engine of class oppression. First, as Siebert shows, the work is filled with a vast number of "low," "cant," and even "vulgar" words, often defined with a "fondness" and "zest" that entirely overpowers their negative labels (Siebert). Second, as Hudson argues, Johnson's standard for propriety was not "polite" class-based usage—a standard he personally and professionally defied in his famous break with Lord Chesterfield—but a complex, scholarly standard based on reason, linguistic "analogy," and etymological history (Hudson). Johnson's Dictionary, therefore, emerges not as a "linguistic weedkiller" (Wimsatt qtd. in Siebert) but as a complex, foundational text that, far from silencing the "diction of common life," celebrated and preserved its "vigorous, concrete, inventive" nature (Siebert).
The Prescriptive Ideal vs. Lexicographical Reality
The perception of Johnson as a rigid prescriptivist originates largely from his own theoretical writings, which articulate a desire for linguistic stability and purity. His 1747 Plan of an English Dictionary, written at his "prescriptive zenith" and addressed to his potential patron, Lord Chesterfield, is rife with authoritarian ambition (Siebert). In the Plan, Johnson seems to embrace the role of a linguistic gatekeeper, vowing to "secure our language from being overrun with cant" and declaring that "barbarous, or impure, words and expressions... are carefully to be eradicated" (Johnson). This stance, as Nicholas Hudson notes, was encouraged by Chesterfield, and Johnson's initial willingness "to interpose my own judgement" was a concession to his Lordship's opinion (Hudson). Johnson's goal, it seemed, was to "fix" the language, preserving it from the "wild and barbarous jargon" of the "lower orders of words" (Siebert).
However, the eight-year ordeal of compiling the Dictionary profoundly "mellowed" this prescriptive zeal (Siebert). The Johnson of the 1755 Preface is a more humbled and pragmatic figure. He famously concedes the futility of his original goal, acknowledging that "tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration" and that to "enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride" (Johnson qtd. in Siebert and Hudson). This is not to say he abandons all judgment; he still dismisses "fugitive cant" as "unworthy of preservation" (Johnson qtd. in Siebert). But the shift from eradication to a weary acceptance of change is palpable. This intellectual shift was mirrored by a personal one. By 1755, Johnson had publicly and decisively broken with Lord Chesterfield. This break, as Hudson argues, was not merely personal but represented a profound "intellectual division" (Hudson). Chesterfield, in his essays for the World, championed "polite" usage, advising Johnson to include fashionable new cant words like "fuzz" (a card term) and "vastly" (as an intensifier) to please "fashionable ladies" (Hudson). Johnson's refusal—and his famous letter rebuffing Chesterfield's belated patronage—was a declaration of independence, establishing himself not as a servant to the "beau monde" but as a "retired and uncourtly scholar" (Hudson). He would not produce a "polite" book, as evidenced by his hilariously inaccurate definition of "flirtation" (a word Chesterfield championed) as simply "a quick sprightly motion" (Johnson qtd. in Hudson). This deliberate rejection of the aristocratic standard is the first and most crucial piece of evidence that Johnson's Dictionary was not designed to be a tool of the "ruling élite" (Hudson).
"Bubbled, Bamboozled, and Bit": Johnson's Hospitality to "Low" Words
The most compelling evidence against the image of Johnson as a linguistic purger is the Dictionary itself, which reveals a man who "did not often practice in the Dictionary what he preached in the preface" (Siebert). Far from a sanitized volume, the Dictionary is a testament to Johnson's fascination with the "vigorous, concrete, inventive language" of his day (Siebert). Donald T. Siebert's analysis provides a wealth of examples demonstrating Johnson's surprising inclusivity. A striking case is his treatment of Jonathan Swift, a fellow Tory and linguistic purist whom Johnson quoted often. In his Proposal for Correcting... the English Tongue, Swift listed a dozen words he considered "barbarous jargon" and a "ruinous corruption" (Swift qtd. in Siebert). Johnson, far from joining the condemnation, included eleven of these words in his Dictionary, and gave his full approval (i.e., no negative label) to five of them, including "mob," "bully," "shuffling," and "palming" (Siebert). This act alone signals a deep divergence from simple, prescriptive Toryism.
Johnson’s hospitality extends into every corner of "nonstandard" language. His Dictionary, as Siebert illustrates, is a useful companion to The Beggar's Opera, as it meticulously defines the popular slang of the day. The "colorful words" "bubbled," "bambouzled," and "bit" (all meaning "duped") are all included, defined, and illustrated with copious examples from Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot (Siebert). The criminal underworld is thoroughly documented, with entries for "blackguards," "pickpockets," "filchers," "footpads," "sharpers," "gulls," "cullies," and "to cozen" (Siebert). Johnson even includes the cant term "kidnapping," citing The Spectator, and the burglar's tool, a "betty" (Siebert).
This inclusivity is not limited to criminal cant; it embraces the fashionable, "fugitive" slang of the "beau monde" (Siebert). He defines new card games like "basset," "ombre," "quadrille," and "whist"; fashionable drinks like "bohea" (tea); and social concepts like "toast" (a celebrated woman) and "vapours" (a fashionable melancholy) (Siebert). Nor does Johnson shy away from the "indecorous or vulgar." Siebert notes that Johnson includes "bubby," "rump," "bum," "arse," the verb "piss," and even the word "clap" in its venereal sense. Most famously, Johnson includes the "explosive word fart" (Siebert), defining it as "wind from behind" and providing two lengthy, humorous poetic illustrations from Sir John Suckling and, notably, the clergyman Jonathan Swift (Siebert).
The very presence of these words undermines the claim that Johnson sought to "expunge" them (Siebert). Moreover, his treatment of them often betrays a clear "fondness" (Siebert). Siebert's analysis of the entry for "prig" is a perfect example. Johnson first labels it "a cant word" but then provides a lively definition—"A pert, conceited, saucy, pragmatical, little fellow"—followed by two long, entertaining examples from The Spectator and Swift (Johnson qtd. in Siebert). As Siebert argues, "the entry simply overpowers the label." The same is true for his entry on "shabby," which he labels "a word that has crept into conversation... but ought not to be admitted," yet which he himself had already used in an illustration for the word "ninny" (Siebert). This "zest for earthy language" (Siebert) proves that Johnson's practice was far removed from the sterile "purity" his Preface seems to promise.
Reason, Analogy, and the "Genius of the Tongue"
If Johnson was not excluding words based on "lowness" and was actively defying the "polite" standards of aristocrats like Chesterfield, what criteria did he use to judge propriety? Nicholas Hudson argues that Johnson’s standard was not social class but scholarly reason (Hudson). Johnson was an "independent man of letters" whose goal was to serve "truth and 'science,' not the upper class" (Hudson). His framework was based on "analogy" (the internal, structural consistency of the language) and etymology (a word's historical pedigree) (Hudson). This "rational grammar" could be used to correct the "impropriety of even upper-class language" (Hudson). A word was "cant" to Johnson not primarily because poor people used it, but because it lacked legitimate roots and thus ran contrary to "the general fabrick" of the tongue (Hudson). This is why "low" but etymologically sound words like "filch" and "helterskelter" (with Teutonic roots) were accepted, while "polite" neologisms like "flirtation" (which Chesterfield championed) were dismissed as "a cant word used by women" (Hudson; Siebert).
This distinction explains Johnson's complex attitude toward "low" words. His objection was not to their social origin but to their inappropriate application, which violated reason and decorum (Siebert). Hudson explains this using Johnson's analysis of Macbeth in The Rambler (No. 168). Johnson famously objected to Shakespeare's use of the word "knife" in a high tragic soliloquy, not because "knife" is intrinsically a "low" word, but because its association with "sordid offices" (like a butcher's shop) creates a "disgraceful dress" for a high, tragic "thought" (Hudson). This is part of Johnson's "dress of thought" metaphor: "truth [...] loses much of her power over the soul, when she appears disgraced by a dress uncouth and ill-adjusted" (Johnson). As a man who "had personally suffered from the world's social prejudices," Johnson was acutely aware that "dress' profoundly influenced the perception of merit," for words as well as for people (Hudson). His labels, therefore, were often not a "condemnation" but an identification of the "appropriate levels of English" (Siebert; Hudson). By including "low" terms, he preserved the language's richness; by labeling them, he guided the writer on their appropriate, rational use.
Finally, Hudson offers a compelling re-reading of Johnson's infamous Preface statement about the "fugitive cant" of the "laborious and mercantile part of the people." This was not, Hudson argues, a slight against the "illiterate lower-classes." Johnson, in fact, regarded the speech of "common people" as "highly conservative and traditional" (Hudson). The true source of linguistic corruption and "wild exuberance" was the literate middle class—the "mercantile part of the people"—who, through "commerce" and "the proliferation of books," constantly innovated, adopted foreign terms, and created neologisms (like "flimsy," from the "cant of manufacturers") with little regard for the language's "purity" or "analogy" (Hudson). Johnson's bogeyman was not the "illiterate poor" but the "illiterate writer," the newly empowered "penmen" of the commercial press (Hudson). His Dictionary was thus not a weapon of the "ruling élite" against the poor, but a scholarly anchor intended to provide stability against the chaotic, fashionable tide of middle-class and "polite" innovation (Hudson).
Conclusion
The popular image of Samuel Johnson as an authoritarian "Great Cham" who used his Dictionary to "crush the 'heteroglossic' vitality of English" in service of the ruling class is a profound misreading of both the man and his work (Hudson). A closer analysis of the Dictionary's actual contents, as illuminated by Donald T. Siebert and Nicholas Hudson, reveals a lexicographer who was "surprisingly receptive to post-Renaissance familiar language" (Siebert) and openly defiant of the "polite" standards of his supposed aristocratic masters (Hudson). While Johnson's Plan and Preface contain prescriptive, authoritarian rhetoric, his practice demonstrates a deep fondness for the "vigorous, concrete, inventive language" of common life, leading him to include thousands of "low," "cant," and "vulgar" words, often with appreciative and humorous illustrations (Siebert). Johnson’s true critical standard was not social class—a standard he scorned—but the independent, scholarly principles of reason, history, and linguistic "analogy" (Hudson). He did not seek to "suppress" low words but rather to classify them, believing that a word's "dress," or its associations, could irrationally detract from the dignity of the "thought" it was meant to convey (Hudson). Far from being a "low-bred ungenerous ruffian" (Hudson) or a simple "authoritarian Tory" (Hudson), "Dictionary Johnson" emerges as a complex, independent scholar who balanced a conservative reverence for the language's "general fabrick" with a descriptive delight in its "boundless chaos," ultimately preserving the very linguistic vitality he is often accused of trying to destroy (Hudson; Siebert).
Works Cited
Hudson, Nicholas. “Johnson’s ‘Dictionary’ and the Politics of ‘Standard English.’” The Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 28, 1998, pp. 77–93. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3508757. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Johnson, Samuel. Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language. Project Gutenberg, 1 Apr. 2004, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5430. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
Siebert, Donald T. “Bubbled, Bamboozled, and Bit: ‘Low Bad’ Words in Johnson’s Dictionary.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 26, no. 3, 1986, pp. 485–96. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/450575. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.
