Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of The English Language"
Noah Webster (1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books that dominated the American market at the time, spent decades of research in compiling his dictionaries. His first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, appeared in 1806. In it, he introduced features that would be a hallmark of future editions such as American spellings (center rather than centre, honor rather than honour, program rather than programme, etc.) and included technical terms from the arts and sciences rather than confining his dictionary to literary words. He spent the next two decades working to expand his dictionary.
Read more about this topic: Webster's Dictionary
Famous quotes containing the words english language, noah webster, noah, webster, american, dictionary, english and/or language:
“The English language is nobodys special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.”
—Derek Walcott (b. 1930)
“... word-sniffing ... is an addiction, like glueor snowsniffing in a somewhat less destructive way, physically if not economically.... As an addict ... I am almost guiltily interested in converts to my own illness, and in a pinch I can recommend nearly any reasonable solace, whether or not it qualifies as a true descendant of Noah Webster.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (19081992)
“And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
I dont care where the water goes if it doesnt get into the
wine.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (18741936)
“I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits.”
—John Webster (15801625)
“Miss U.S.A. is in the same graveyard that [Amanda Jones] the twelve-year-old is. Where the sixteen-year-old is. All the past selves. There comes a time when you have to bury those selves because youve grown into another one.”
—Amanda Theodosia Jones, U.S. beauty contest winner, Miss U.S.A., 1973. As quoted under the pseudonym Emma Wright in American Dreams, Prologue, by Studs Terkel (1980)
“If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, ones own writings in translation.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (18991977)
“Men must speak English who can write Sanskrit; they must speak a modern language who write, perchance, an ancient and universal one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Consensus is usually made possible by vague language and shallow commitments.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)