“Johnson may well be the most celebrated lexicographer of English, yet many claims about his lexicography are exaggerated.” He wasn’t the first professional lexicographer; he wasn’t the first to use quotations to illustrate usage; he wasn’t even the first to write witty definitions. And yet he made dictionaries what they are today: “Among early English lexicographers, Johnson was the first to write memorably by design; he was the first to assert the cultural authority of dictionary definitions.”