A Dictionary of the English Language in the context of "Honor"

Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American spelling. Many of the differences between American and British or Commonwealth English date back to a time before spelling standards were developed. For instance, some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain, and some spellings seen as "British" were once commonly used in the United States.

A "British standard" began to emerge following the 1755 publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, and an "American standard" started following the work of Noah Webster and, in particular, his An American Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1828. Webster's efforts at spelling reform were effective in his native country, resulting in certain well-known patterns of spelling differences between the American and British varieties of English.

Samuel Johnson (18 September [O.S. 7 September] 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".

Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for The Gentleman's Magazine. Early works include Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes and the play Irene. After nine years' effort, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the apologue The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In 1763 he befriended James Boswell, with whom he travelled to Scotland, as Johnson described in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Near the end of his life came a massive, influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Lichfield (/ˈlɪtʃfiːld/) is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated 18 miles (29 km) south-east of the county town of Stafford, 9 miles (14 km) north-east of Walsall, 8 miles (13 km) north-west of Tamworth, 13 miles (21 km) south-west of Burton upon Trent and 14 miles (22.5 km) north of Birmingham. At the time of the 2021 Census, the population was 34,738 and the population of the wider Lichfield District was 106,400.

Notable for its three-spired medieval cathedral, Lichfield was the birthplace of Samuel Johnson, the writer of the first authoritative Dictionary of the English Language. The city's recorded history began when Chad of Mercia arrived to establish his bishopric in 669 AD and the settlement grew as the ecclesiastical centre of Mercia. In 2009, the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork, was found 4 mi (6.4 km) south-west of Lichfield.

London is a poem by Samuel Johnson, produced shortly after he moved to London. Written in 1738, it was his first major published work. The poem in 263 lines imitates Juvenal's Third Satire, expressed by the character of Thales as he decides to leave London for Wales. Johnson imitated Juvenal because of his fondness for the Roman poet and he was following a popular 18th-century trend of Augustan poets headed by Alexander Pope that favoured imitations of classical poets, especially for young poets in their first ventures into published verse.

London was published anonymously and in multiple editions during 1738. It quickly received critical praise, notably from Pope. This would be the second time that Pope praised one of Johnson's poems; the first being for Messiah, Johnson's Latin translation of Pope's poem. Part of that praise comes from the political basis of the poem. From a modern view, the poem is outshone by Johnson's later poem The Vanity of Human Wishes, as well as works like his A Dictionary of the English Language, his Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and his periodical essays for The Rambler, The Idler and The Adventurer.