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:
“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“... word-sniffing ... is an addiction, like glue—or snow—sniffing 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 (1908–1992)
“And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
“I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the
wine.””
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.”
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
“The American people abhor a vacuum.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“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, one’s own writings in translation.””
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Chaucer’s remarkably trustful and affectionate character appears in his familiar, yet innocent and reverent, manner of speaking of his God. He comes into his thought without any false reverence, and with no more parade than the zephyr to his ear.... There is less love and simple, practical trust in Shakespeare and Milton. How rarely in our English tongue do we find expressed any affection for God! Herbert almost alone expresses it, “Ah, my dear God!””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)