300 years ago today, a boy named Samuel Johnson was born. He achieved many things in life, but is perhaps most known for his creation of an authoritative dictionary of the English language. His wasn’t the first, but it was the dictionary in common use until the Oxford English Dictionary came along in 1928.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, one of the first questions we’re asked about Quarrel is “Where did you get your word list?” As you may know, we’re using a dictionary licensed from Collins and unlike many other word games, we display the definitions of words during the game.

I like to think that, as a man of renowned wordiness, Johnson would have been an awesome Quarrel player, and I feel his indirect contribution to the game is worthy of note here.

So thank you, Dr. Johnson – without you, Quarrel wouldn’t exist, and that would be sad for everyone.

-David