>Johnson claimed that he could finish [the English Dictionary] in three years. In comparison, the French equivalent, Académie Française, had forty scholars spending forty years to complete its dictionary, prompting Johnson to claim, “This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman”. Although he did not succeed in completing the work in three years, he did manage to complete the dictionary in nine, justifying his boast.
>>25599478The Greatest Laureate of our language, without a doubt.
>>25599478touché. english has a much larger vocabulary as well.
>>25599478yeah but he forgot the word "sausage"and "aardvark"
>>25599567
>>25599597I was worried no-one would get that, honestly
A British man locking himself into a grey, damp cell for 18 hours a day for 9 years: This'll show the French
>>25599478His definitions are pretty terse, howsoeverbeit.
>>25599690No opportunity to humiliate the French should ever be neglected.Seriously, the Anglo-French rivalry was a major driver in the development of civilisation.
