Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/11



"e that undertakes to compile a dictionary, undertakes that which, if it comprehends the full extent of his design, he knows himself unable to perform. Yet his labours, though deficient, may be useful, and with the hope of this inferior praise, he must incite his activity, and solace his weariness." So wrote the great lexicographer, Dr. Johnson, in the "Advertisement" to the fourth edition of his Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1773. In another place he had already told, in words which have since become classical, of the difficulties he had encountered, and of his own estimate of the shortcomings of his work as compared with the original design. It is in very much the same position that I find myself, now that I have completed the first instalment of my own task, smaller and less important though it be. I am fully conscious of manifold imperfections; yet I hope, and indeed believe, that I have, in my presentation of what is generically known as "slang," advanced the enquiry in some measure. While cordially acknowledging the aid I have derived from the labours of my predecessors in the field, I cannot but recognise that, again and again, having adopted a new mode of treatment, I have found myself forced to "blaze" the way into what was practically a terra incognita.