The title of this paper draws deliberately on that of John Sinclair’s keynote in Lorient in 2004, 
In praise of the dictionary. Whereas John Sinclair concentrated on the product, the dictionary, I shall concentrate of the field, and the harmless drudges who undertake the activity. The starting point will be Georgian lexicography and its importance to the national language and culture. This leads naturally to my own feelings as to the role of lexicography today and the science policy challenges it faces. I shall then discuss the importance of maintaining a high profile in the face of a general funding crisis in research, its place on the European research scene and the influence of evaluation schemes, impact analysis and open access. In a second part, I shall give praise to two particular lexicographers – Antoine Furetière and Henri Basnage de Beauval – and discuss the importance of historical lexicography with the context of digital humanities.