A well-meaning, harmless drudge...

A well-meaning, harmless drudge...

… was how the Oxford Dictionary of Computing defined a systems administrator. Or at least it did in the second-hand copy of the first edition, which I owned in my university days, 35 years ago (ouch). 
While I loved the self-effacing humour, it was 20 years later that I discovered it was a hat-tip to Dr Johnson, whose dictionary, first published in 1755, defined a lexicographer as:
“A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and signification of words.”
In these hyperbolic days of IT, perhaps it is right to wonder whether one day the role of the systems administrator can once more be distilled to that of a lexicographer, be it no less useful or rewarding a position nonetheless!