Although there have been some "dictionary wars", and occasionally publishers are accused of "dictionary criminality", on the whole lexicography is a fairly innocent and innocuous activity variously described by their practitioners as "dull" (Samuel Johnson), "enjoyable" (James Hulbert), "exciting" (Eric Partridge), "tedious" (H.A. Gleason), "difficult" (Ladislav Zgusta), "like engineering" (Charles McGregor), "team work" (Bo Svensén), and "nothing less than the attempt to fashion a custom-made product on an assembly-line basis" (Sidney Landau).
Most dictionaries have forerunners, and all have imitators; an understanding of the historical foundation of dictionary-making is therefore one of the preconditions of further progress in academic lexicography (Hartmann, 1986).
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