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 final video, I asked Dr. Schleifer what made the OED more successful thank Johnson’s dictionary. In his answer, Dr. Schleifer begins by stating that the OED is so much larger in size and contains so many more references, citations, and variations than Johnson’s dictionary. The OED also contains more words than Johnson’s dictionary, which makes it more successful. Dr. Schleifer says that the OED is not more popular than dictionaries like Webster’s Dictionary and online dictionaries because most people today are not looking up a word to learn about its origins. The OED is a scholarly work for people that wanna do more than just know what a word means and how to say it, and Dr. Schleifer says that the OED does this better than any other dictionary.

I also asked Dr. Schleifer is he had any additional comments. He decided to add that Samuel Johnson did not have a college education and did not grow up and live in the best circumstances, but he was able to do something amazing within his lifetime. He states that Samuel Johnson is someone to be admired for what he accomplished given his circumstances, and he should be an inspiration to a lot of young people. Dr. Schleifer ends saying that no matter what your circumstances are, if you work hard enough, you can overcome those circumstances and do something “pretty cool.”