In the early 18th Century, both Swift and Defoe proposed that there should be an English School to direct the English speaking (this was also or less the sole generation the two men agreed on anything).
They felt that English was changing and took this to be synonymous with deterioration. The proposal was based on the French Academy, and was augmented in consideration with the tradition of French dirigisme, or authoritarianism, in this position the idea that the vocabulary belonged to the government, than with English liberal traditions which allowed variants of English to coexist, both written and spoken, with mutual comprehensibility providing the beef which stopped the divergence fitting further great, and allowed the talking to pocket money and foster washed-up the collective aptitude of the linguistic population.

Happily the proposals of Swift and Defoe came to fly speck and the conversation continued to progress freely, as before. This was remarkably crucial in the interval of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, when a changing environment demanded a utterance that would remodel flexibly and quickly.

In the 1840's a more advantageous adult than either Swift or Defoe emerged from the considerable bulk of hack journalists and writers eking in living in 'Grubb Street'. This male was Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784). Ironically he started with the identical intentions as Swift and Defoe and published a prospectus proposing a vocabulary to 'fix' the English language. He was extraordinary in obtaining financial backing, from the Longman brothers amongst others, and locate approximately his work, aided single by a handful of amanuenses, on the contrary as his attempt progressed he came to realise firstly, that in a changing world, a constant speech would not suffice, and secondly (and also importantly) that his engagement was basically one of description, not prescription. The English words existed before his dictionary, and it was not his capacity to petrify and prescribe it, on the other hand to cook convey image it as it was used, which he did, with a phenomenal figure of examples of usages. This penetration showed both the tendency and humility of this abundant man. He was equally aware that English would endure to spending money after the completion of his dictionary, and did not resent this.

His dictionary was exceptional and the front bully English dictionary ever produced. Some of his definitions showed his meaning of humor e.g. 'lexicographer - a compiler of dictionaries, a mild drudge', his prejudices e.g. 'excise - a hateful tariff levied on commodities', and his sporadic propensity to call with outside defining e.g. 'net - anything reticulated or decussated at honorable angles, and connected at the interstices'.

On the other hand his dictionary was a office of genius, and continued as the leading reference source for else than a century. Some of his definitions are yet used in advanced dictionaries (his copyright career extensive expired). It was published in 1855 and he became a 'celebrity' (hate to utilize that word) since of it, and received an annual pension of 300:00 from the king, George III. This freed him from the necessity of continually struggling for a living, and enabled him to undertake journeys, some of which are actual entertaingly described by Johnson himself, or by Boswell, or by both.

His dismissal of the solution of an English Faculty was one of the considerable factors which contributed to the pre-eminence of English, and (dare I say) its superiority over other languages. English has been for nothing to assimilate text from other languages without restraint and has consequently convert richer and exceeding expressive than other languages. Several non-native Academies clock there career as chiefly 'defending' their language against the intrusion of foreign words, however in doing so truly weaken their language e.g. French usually has to render English contents with distinct French words, such as 'Bonhomme de Neige' (snowman). Scheme a sentence containing a mammoth symbol of such subject ! Compare this with the English borrowing of 'fresh' (as in 'cheeky') from German/Yiddish 'frech'. This may seem prize duplication and redundancy, nevertheless in gospel it is not. 'Cheeky' has a broader exercise than 'fresh', e.g. a schoolchild may be cheeky to the teacher. 'Fresh' is usually used in a sexual case (not really exclusively, admittedly), and thence adds to the precision of the language, to the proportions where 'getting fresh' could nearly always be taken to selfish 'coming on to, creation a pass' or similar.

The American merge of state origins has been principally productive in this respect, and American dominance in movie and TV has meant that this enrichment of the language has spread to British English and the English of other Anglophone nations.

It would be easy, and probably accurate, to compare the Johnsonian air to language augmentation to the 'laissez faire' path of the Anglo-Saxon nations to trade, social organization etc. (Just noticed I in toto accidentally used 'laissez faire'; not to dash off a point, honestly). This entrance seems to job hardy in these areas also.

Johnson said that decree of language by academies was 'contrary to English notions of liberty'. I am trustworthy he would admit been blest to extend this to American, Australian, Canadian and Recent Zealand notions of liberty.

Let us not forget or minimise the contribution of this fat workman to the strengths of the English language.