Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Interpretation
The lexicographer seeks to avoid criticism rather than aiming for acclaim.
In this quote, Samuel Johnson expresses the unique role of a lexicographer, who focuses on the difficult task of defining and documenting language. Unlike other authors who might strive for praise through their creative work, the lexicographer’s primary goal is to avoid blame for inaccuracies in their definitions, emphasizing the challenges and responsibilities inherent in the pursuit of linguistic clarity.
In practice
In a discussion about the intricacies of language, this quote can highlight the challenges faced by those documenting words.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining; but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.
It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.
Over-certified adjectives are the mark of most best-seller writing
The difference between memoir and autobiography, as far as I see it, is that a memoir is there primarily to tell one particular story, whereas an autobiography tries to be a full account of a life.
I think that when memoir goes wrong, it goes wrong from too much memory, too much detail. It's about clearing all that away and just getting to the story.
When I wrote 'Lord of the Flies' - I had no idea it would even get published.
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