Any mention of Samuel Johnson's historic English dictionary brings words such as "fopdoddle" and "jobbernowl" to my mind - for that is what Dr Johnson would probably have called my forebears, Melosina Lenox-Conyngham
Johnson published his dictionary 250 years ago. It was not the first dictionary, for there had been collections of obsolete or difficult words in English, in Italy the Vocabulario degli Accademici della crusca had been published in 1612, while the 40 members of French Academy had laboured for 40 years compiling Le dictionnaire de l'Academie francaise, published in 1694, and then they had spent another 18 years revising it.
Johnson was undeterred by the difficulties the French had encountered. In 1746, he signed a contract with his booksellers to produce an English dictionary in three years. But, after filling 80 notebooks and reaching only the letter "C", he found the notebooks were so messy that the printer was unable to follow them, so he began again. It took less than 10 years to complete the dictionary - a remarkable feat when one considers the huge task that he had set himself.
The first edition was a 2,300-page volume weighing 10 kg (22lbs), the size of a large turkey. In Johnson's lifetime five further editions were published and a sixth came out after he died.
Johnson defined 42,773 words and illustrated their meanings with 110,000 quotations garnered from over 500 authors, though the works of Shakespeare, Dryden, Addison and Bacon represent just over a third of all the quotations. Six, and sometimes seven, assistants worked with him in the garret of his house in Gough Square off Fleet Street; their task was to copy the passages that Johnson had marked up.
Johnson's genius was in his definitions; he listed 83 meanings for "put", 85 for "fall" (as verb or noun), 94 for "set", and 134 for "take". He defined conscience as "the knowledge or faculty by which we judge of the goodness or wickedness of ourselves", a cough as "a convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity", dull as "not exhilaterating [ sic]; not delightful; as, to make dictionaries is dull work".
Oats, he said, were "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people".
He did make occasional errors, such as "pastern", which he identified wrongly as the knee of a horse (in fact it is the part between the fetlock and the hoof). When he was challenged as to why he had made such a mistake, he answered, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance".
He defined "lexicographer", with self-mocking irony, as "a harmless drudge".
How he would have described my great-great-
grandmother, I can only imagine, because it was she who carelessly destroyed a manuscript copy of the great dictionary.
It happened that my great-great-grandfather was a humble curate in the cathedral town of Lichfield, Staffordshire. He was in love with the archdeacon's daughter, but her family considered he was her equal neither in birth nor fortune and bitterly opposed the match. Also in Lichfield lived an elderly lady, Miss Lucy Porter, the step-daughter of Dr Johnson. She was very fond of great-great-grandpapa, though once, when she was opposed in conversation by him, she said: "Why, Mr Pearson, you are just like Dr Johnson, I think: I do not mean that you are a man of the greatest capacity in all the world like Dr Johnson, but that you contradict every word one speaks just like him."
She also used to tell him that, on her death, he would not be forgotten. He took this to mean some little keepsake was in store for him, but when the will was read it was found she had left him a house, a great deal of money and a number of relics of Dr Johnson. These included the manuscript of the dictionary, a bust of Johnson taken from a death-mask, his walking-stick and an enormous tablecloth with 12 huge napkins.
Now that my great-great-grandfather had inherited a fortune, the Archdeacon had to withdraw his opposition to the marriage of his daughter, though the bride's mother was so annoyed about the nuptials that she stayed in bed on their wedding day.
The couple lived happily ever after, though to our shame, they did not take the care of the Johnson mementoes as they should have. My great-great-grandmother said Johnson was "a gross old man and a dirty feeder" and she tossed the things up into a loft. Some time later an American offered a thousand pounds for the manuscript copy of the dictionary, which caused her to scurry off to look for it; but, alas, rats had already found and gnawed through most of the pages. The bust of Johnson was put on a shelf from which it fell and shattered into little pieces when someone slammed the door in a huff. The walking-stick was burnt in a house fire - so only the tablecloth and napkins remain.
A year or two ago my napkins and I attended a dinner to launch a biography of Boswell by Adam Sisman. In Boswell's diary there is a mention of Boswell and Johnson supping in the company of great-great-grandpa, but no report of the conversation or of any bon mots that fell from their lips. Perhaps, I like to think, they were too busy wiping their lips with "my" napkins.