When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious
without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view,
there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice
was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle
of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test of purity;
and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages
of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority.
Samuel Johnson, ‘Preface’ to A Dictionary of the English Language