Creator
Samuel Johnson
Title
“A Grammar of the English Tongue,” in A Dictionary of the English Language.
Coverage
London
Publisher
W. Strahan
Date
1755
Description
Samuel Johnson (1709–1786) is one of the two most illustrious writers ever to write an English grammar, the other being the playwright Ben Jonson (whose English Grammar appeared posthumously in 1640). Johnson’s short grammar—essentially the translation of a 1653 grammar of English written in Latin—was the last piece prepared for the 1755 dictionary. Johnson followed “the common grammarians” and disparaged the “innovators” whose “new terms have sunk their learning into neglect.”