Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Samuel Johnson Jr.

Preconceived ideas should not be allowed to prevent an encyclopedia from accepting knowledge different from that which has "always" been "known" to be "The Truth".

Neither should an encyclopedia be the space to divulge or discuss new ideas, of course.

The information compiled in this small article, however, is not new. Nor is it "my opinion". This piece of information may be found in many scientific publications (of Human Science).

I was as mystified "as the next man" when I found it, but I marveled and was curious enough to check on and confirm it.

Please refer to:

1) http://www.jstor.org/pss/451187 ,

where you can see the article America's First Lexicographer: Samuel Johnson Jr., 1757-1836, by Martha Jane Gibson. American Speech, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1936), pp. 283-292 Published by: Duke University Press

2) Please refer also to The Connecticut magazine: an illustrated monthly, Volume 5, by William Farrand Felch.

In http://books.google.com/books?id=JMQMAAAAYAAJ&q=%22samuel+johnson+jr.%22&dq=%22samuel+johnson+jr.%22&cd=1, you can see part of pages 526, 529 and 531, where Johnson Jr. authorship of this first dictionary is mentioned.

3) Philological quarterly, Volume 19 By University of Iowa, pgs. 298 to 300. See part of it in http://books.google.com/books?id=DwE5AAAAMAAJ&q=%22samuel+johnson+jr.%22&dq=%22samuel+johnson+jr.%22&cd=2

4) an electronic fac-simile of the article published in The New York Times in Oct 28, 1898, can be read as PDF here: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E0CE3D81438E433A25756C0A9679D94699ED7CF

This last one is one of the references removed from the original article, classified as "fake reference" (one of them, but not the olny one).

I agree "NY Times, 1898" sounds farfetched -- I would doubt it, too, but I would check on it before accusing the article of being "gibberish". As you may easily see, the fac-simile is under the NY Times domain itself, nytimes.com

There are many more. Thank you for your attention.

--Betty VH (talk) 00:36, 1 May 2010 (UTC)