Along with Randal Cotgrave, a friend who published his dictionary in 1612, Shakespeare and other writers of the time were working toward standardization. Johnson was the big Kahuna in the standardization racket, however, with his publication in the 18th century. Johnson's work had only 40,000 words; that of a predecessor had 48,000, but Johnson disliked and left out 'cant,' as well as scientific-technical and foreign words.

Anyone know how many words are in the current OED? They have taken in the words of Canada and the U. S. A., Australia-New Zealand, etc. including much UK as well as overseas dialect. Much technical and scientific vocabulary as well.