In this interview, I sat down with Dr Paul Schleifer, an English professor who specializes in English as a spoken language. I asked him various questions about Samuel Johnson and his influence in lexicography and the Oxford English Dictionary. In this video, I asked him why Samuel Johnson’s dictionary was so important and influential at the time that it was made. Dr. Schleifer explains that Johnson’s dictionary was something that had never been done before, and the way that he went about creating the dictionary was relatively new. He says that linguistics was up and coming in the eighteenth century, and Johnson’s dictionary gave examples of how words had been used throughout history, which is historical linguistics. This tactic had never used before, and it set the standard for future lexicographers.