Johnson's Prescriptive Labels — a Reassessment

Johnson's Prescriptive Labels — a Reassessment1 Kate Wüd University of Glasgow Introduction t: ^he question of whether or not Johnson was a prescriptivist has frequently been discussed, often with a focus on his practice of using prescriptive labels. For example, Allen (1978, 198) discovers that "in the entire dictionary there actually appear more than 1,150 words bearing indications of Johnson's personal attitude towards them, roughly one in forty [of the 41,443 headwords] , or about two and one-half percent." Allen then gives the number of occurrences of labels such as proper, impmperand low which, he argues, indicateJohnson's "personal attitudes." Similarly, Barnbrook (2005, 109), after discussingJohnson's use of labels such as improper, ludicrous and low, concludes: There seems to be clear and incontrovertible evidence in the sheer volume and nature ofJohnson's usage notes that the prescriptivist approach promised in the Plan and detailed, though with reservations, in the Preface, informed the construction of the Dictionary to a significant extent. However, it is my contention thatJohnson's prescriptivism, as evidenced in his use of labels, is not as extensive as such comments suggest. This argument will be supported first by examining how many labels there are in proportion to the overall size of the dictionary and, second, by considering whatJohnson meant by them. 1 I am grateful to the AHRC for funding the research on which this article is based. Dictionaries:Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 30 (2009), 108-118 Johnson's Prescriptive Labels — a Reassessment109 Number and Proportion of Prescriptive Labels Quantifications ofJohnson's prescriptive labels are usually based on a comparison between the number of usage labels and the number of headwords in the dictionary. As noted above, Allen used this method (based on a manual count) to arrive at a total of about 2.5%. Barnbrook (whose analysis is based on computational searches of the first and fourth editions) claims that "more than 10 percent of the headwords in both editions... contain usage notes of one sort or another" (2005, 99). This figure includes descriptive labels (grammatical labels such as plural and style labels such as poetic) as well, and Barnbrook does not directly state the percentage of prescriptive labels only. However, ifone works through the tables in which the numbers of usage notes are divided into prescriptive and descriptive (2005, 104), one can calculate that the proportion of prescriptive labels to headwords is 1.8% in the first edition and 2.1% in the fourth, similar to the figure reached by Allen. However, these percentages are slightly misleading, sinceJohnson often does not label a whole word, but rather one sense of a word, as in his entry for indifferent, adj. (entries are from the first edition unless stated otherwise): 1.Neutral; not determined on either side... 2.Unconcerned; inattentive; regardless... 3.Not to have such difference as that the one is for its own sake preferable to the other... 4.Impartial; disinterested... 5.Passable; having mediocrity; of a middling state; neither good nor worst. This is an improper and colloquial use, especially when applied to persons. The first four senses are not censured at all; it is only the fifth sense that Johnson regards as "improper and colloquial," certainly not the word indifferentitself . The same is true for many of the senses thatJohnson labels. Thus, even though the proportion oflabels to headwords is about 2%, it would be more accurate to compare the number of labels with the number of senses. Unfortunately, there has been very little research into the number ofsenses inJohnson's dictionary, but, based on a count of a random sample of pages from the dictionary, 1 found that there are on average twice as many senses as headwords, if this holds for the whole 110Kate Wild dictionary, then the proportion of prescriptive labels to senses is only about 1%. How Prescriptive are the "Prescriptive'' Labels? Even the figure of 1%, though, is perhaps an overstatement, as it includes labels which are classified as prescriptive based On their presentday meanings. That is, it is often assumed that whatJohnson meant by, say, improper, was the same as what improper means today. A full appreciation of the...