英语词汇johnsonese的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

Johnsonese; Johnsonian. Dr. Johnson, as the great English man of letters Samuel Johnson is usually called, remains most famous for his monumental Dictionary published in 1755 and the immortal Life of Samuel Johnson written by James Boswell, generally considered the greatest English biography. A man of enormous energies who would have done even more were it not for the debilitating scrofula and often dire poverty that plagued him all his days, Johnson was revered as a moralist and a brilliant conversationalist. His Dictionary was the first to in- troduce examples of word usages by prominent authors, and along with his Lives of the English Poets (brilliant but essentially one-sided appraisals), it is still read today. Anecdotes about Johnson abound, but appropriate here is his reply to the lady who asked him why in his dictionary he defined pastern (part of a horse’s foot) as the knee of a horse. “Sheer ignorance, Mad- am!” he explained. The two words that do Johnson honor reveal opposite sides of the Great Cham. Johnsonian refers to the good common sense reflected in his writings and conversation, while Johnsonese remembers the rambling polysyllabic style into which he would often slip—the very opposite of pithy Johnso- nian phraseology. Partridge notes a third term honoring John- son in his Dictionary of Slang: “Doctor Johnson, the membrum virile: literary: ca 1790–1880. Perhaps because there was no one that Dr. Johnson was not prepared to stand up to.” Dr. Johnson died in 1784, aged 73. See also roswell.

词汇	johnsonese
词源	Johnsonese; Johnsonian. Dr. Johnson, as the great English man of letters Samuel Johnson is usually called, remains most famous for his monumental Dictionary published in 1755 and the immortal Life of Samuel Johnson written by James Boswell, generally considered the greatest English biography. A man of enormous energies who would have done even more were it not for the debilitating scrofula and often dire poverty that plagued him all his days, Johnson was revered as a moralist and a brilliant conversationalist. His Dictionary was the first to in- troduce examples of word usages by prominent authors, and along with his Lives of the English Poets (brilliant but essentially one-sided appraisals), it is still read today. Anecdotes about Johnson abound, but appropriate here is his reply to the lady who asked him why in his dictionary he defined pastern (part of a horse’s foot) as the knee of a horse. “Sheer ignorance, Mad- am!” he explained. The two words that do Johnson honor reveal opposite sides of the Great Cham. Johnsonian refers to the good common sense reflected in his writings and conversation, while Johnsonese remembers the rambling polysyllabic style into which he would often slip—the very opposite of pithy Johnso- nian phraseology. Partridge notes a third term honoring John- son in his Dictionary of Slang: “Doctor Johnson, the membrum virile: literary: ca 1790–1880. Perhaps because there was no one that Dr. Johnson was not prepared to stand up to.” Dr. Johnson died in 1784, aged 73. See also roswell.
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