Webster's Dictionary - Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of The English Language"

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 noah webster, noah, webster, american, dictionary, english and/or language:

    ... 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)

    Disney World has acquired by now something of the air of a national shrine. American parents who don’t take their children there sense obscurely that they have failed in some fundamental way, like Muslims who never made it to Mecca.
    Simon Hoggart (b. 1946)

    I am hungry and you give me
    a dictionary to decipher.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.
    George Orwell (1903–1950)

    It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to.... The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
    Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)