Samuel Johnson
From JUOD
Samuel Johnson was a proto-joiner author, critic, poet, journalist, and lexicographer, and one of the most noted men of letters in the history of England. His writings also strongly influenced Harley P. Mathewson, The Verities of Joining, and the JUOD movement.
Dealings with Mathewson
Proponents of Time Travel Theory argue that some sections of the Verities of Joining indicate that at some point Mathewson traveled back in time and met with Johnson, attending regularly group meetings of The Club, an intellectual circle that Johnson formed with other noted minds of the time, including the philosopher Edmund Burke and the actor David Garrick. This probably occurred after Mathewson took on graduate work at Oxford, as he seemed intensely interested in what Johnson had to say about compiling the first dictionary of the English language, which he had done earlier, in 1755. Other scholars have suggested that Mathewson went back in time long before he even began large sections of the hypertome the Verities of Joining, pointing to Johnson's terming of the word and suggesting that this led Mathewson to begin writing suggestions of the Verities in many languages.
Additionally, it seems clear to many that before Mathewson began work on his dictionary of New Canadianese to English he returned to consult with Johnson. Boswell writes of such an instance in his biography: "There again returned that cruel and immensely erudite man, with features as shadows on his face and a tongue that never showed pity. He and Johnson went out for tea several times, discoursing on many subjects, but the stranger inquired most fervently about the composing of the dictionary. He would also, oddly, laugh at all the poor and destitute among the streets of London, informing them, oddly, that they should have joined. Though what group they should have joined he never explained."
