. Selections from the works of Samuel Johnson;. e unsettled and fortuitous, I found it necessaryto distinguish those irregularities that are inherent inour tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, from others 20which the ignorance or negligence of later writers hasproduced. Every language has its anomalies, whichthough inconvenient, and in themselves once unnecessary,must be tolerated among the imperfections of humanthings, and which require only to be registered, that 25they may not be increased; and ascertained, that theymay not be confounded: but every language haslikewise its improprieties and
. Selections from the works of Samuel Johnson;. e unsettled and fortuitous, I found it necessaryto distinguish those irregularities that are inherent inour tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, from others 20which the ignorance or negligence of later writers hasproduced. Every language has its anomalies, whichthough inconvenient, and in themselves once unnecessary,must be tolerated among the imperfections of humanthings, and which require only to be registered, that 25they may not be increased; and ascertained, that theymay not be confounded: but every language haslikewise its improprieties and absurdities, whichit is the duty of the lexicographer to correct orproscribe. 30 As language- was at its beginning merely oral, allwords of necessary or common use were spoken beforethey were written; and while they were unfixed by anyvisible signs, must have been spoken with great diversity,as we now observe those who cannot read to catch 35sounds imperfectly, and utter them negligently. Whenthis wild and barbarous jargon was first reduced to. Johnson in a tie-wig, by Reynolds. PEE FACE TO THE ENGLISH DICTIOXARY 31 an alphabet, every penman endeavored to express, asbe could, tbe sounds which be was accustomed to pro-nounce or to receive, and vitiated in writing such wordsas were already vitiated in speech. Tbe powers of the5 letters, when they were applied to a new language,must have been vague and unsettled, and therefore dif-ferent hands would exhibit the same sound by differentcombinations. From this uncertain pronunciation arise in a great 10 part the various dialects of the same country, whichwill always be observed to grow fewer, and less differ-ent, as books are multiplied; and from this arbitraryrepresentation of sounds by letters proceeds that diver-sity of spelling observable in the Saxon remains, and 151 suppose in the first books of every nation, whichperplexes or destroys analogy, and produces anomalousformations, which, being once incorporated, can neverbe afterw
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