Cryptic crossword clue
English team in large firm chart last of May and Johnson’s work 12

The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 12 letter word LEXICOGRAPHY

I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
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Buddy explains!

The straight part
We know that "Johnson’s work" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case johnson’s work = lexicography.
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.
This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.

What does LEXICOGRAPHY mean?

LEXICOGRAPHY noun
  1. The art or craft of compiling, writing, and editing dictionaries.
  2. The scholarly discipline of analysing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language and developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries.
  3. A dictionary, a lexicon, a wordbook.

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