I sat down with Dr. Paul Schleifer, professor of English at Southern Wesleyan University, who specializes in English as a spoken language, to discuss the impact that Samuel Johnson’s work had on future lexicographers. In this video, I ask Dr. Schleifer how Samuel Johnson influenced the work of future lexicographers and in what way he laid the foundation for them. In his answer, Dr. Schleifer discusses the history of dictionaries and how important it is to have an understanding of it. He describes what the standard for dictionaries has become due to Johnson’s work, and he connects these standards to Webster’s Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary.