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“... tell you that their job is simply to describe usage, in much the spirit, if not the letter, of Dr Johnson two hundred years ago, who said his aim was ‘not [to] form, but register the language ... not [to] teach men how they should think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts’. Such a policy is not without risk, for most ...”

“... ally it had solemnly sworn to defend. ‘If we are driven from the field in Vietnam,’ President Johnson had pledged in July 1965, ‘then no nation can ever have the same confidence in American promises or American protection. We will stand in Vietnam.’ Uncomfortable precedents indeed for America’s allies in a new open-ended crusade against another ...”

“... the authority of a central critical tradition, he was adept at echoing Arnold. Coleridge or Samuel Johnson, as he did in his assault on C.P. Snow: ‘The peculiar quality of Snow’s assurance expresses itself in a pervasive tone; a tone of which one can say that, while only genius could justify it, one cannot readily think of genius adopting it.’ Leavis ...”

“... This extreme unevenness of coverage is not at all unusual: in R.W. Chapman’s edition of Johnson’s letters, for instance, there are more letters from Johnson’s last year than from his first fifty years put together. The exception that proves the rule is Dickens, who became so famous so young that people ...”

“... mainly concerned with generating economic growth: following the example set by Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan in London, it seems likely they will act largely as ‘brand ambassadors’, attracting business and outside investment to their regions. The most obvious sign that the Tories are not about to usher in a second golden age of local ...”

“... of symbolist literature – and try to outdo one another with witty citations (‘It is as Dr Johnson said, the Irish are a fair people; they do not speak well of anyone’). A man called Leon Bergson changes his surname because he is ‘unable to endure the rivalry between his own ambition and [Henri] Bergson’s fame’. Another character describes ...”