The Dictionary Wars III

In Brief

The final installment of our Dictionary Wars series explains how Noah Webster manages to get the last laugh by finally kicking the bucket and letting some real capitalists take charge of his dictionary. It's a heartwarming story about the morality of companies and how to get ahead in the real world.

Party On

You might also be interested in: The Dictionary Wars I: Noah Webster Noah Webster was a boring old snoot and his Dictionary is practically holier than the Bible. Why? The Dictionary Wars II: Webster vs. Worcester A battle between two Dictionaries captures the imaginations of pre-Civil War America Spelling, Schmelling Why on Earth is English spelled the way it is? Here's some clues. The Definition of Crazy Literally crazy man writes a lot of the Oxford English Dictionary. Guess what? He's good at it.

Today we come to the riveting conclusion of the saga that has no doubt held most of the History House faithful on the edge of their seats, fairly quivering with the sheer anticipation. After learning about the dogmatic, if cheerless, Noah Webster and his archrival Joseph Worcester, we promised that the former would finally get his come-uppance. Those behind on the reading may want to peruse parts one and two of The Dictionary Wars.

It is an oft-spoken maxim that folks, especially creative types, only get famous after they die. Cynics have also observed that people only get ahead once they have dropped the cumbersome baggage known as 'principles'. Noah's story uniquely affirms both statements. We will therefore start with his death.

Two brothers whose names ought to be familiar bought the rights to Webster's dictionaries: Charles and George Merriam. Wasting no time, they hired the jauntily named Chauncey Goodrich to revise the original edition and priced it to move at six bucks. With some business sense behind the venture, the Merriam-Webster dictionary actually did well in the marketplace. As we discussed last time, the resulting commercial war between the Merriam brothers, representing Noah Webster's populist dictionary, and Joseph Worcester's Anglophile dictionary turned into a reflection of America's basic pre-Civil War identity conflict.

We must remember in the end, it's money that makes the world go 'round. As usual, Jonathon Green spins the tale best in his book Chasing the Sun:

Typical were the barely concealed blackmail tactics engaged in by Mason Bros. Of New York, who had been leased the rights to publish a number of Webster's school pamphlets. Writing to Messrs. Cowperthwait & Co. of Philadelphia, their correspondent stated:

If you are interested in Worcester's Dictionaries or are using influence for them we, and the other publishers of Webster, would be glad to know it... We of course do not question your right to work for these books or any others, but would like a clear understanding in the matter, as we are dipsosed to reciprocate favors in these book matters. Please to show your flag.

They also asked whether Cowperthwait's had "joined hands with the Worcester interest." To this note was attached a list of publishers with whom the Masons dealt, whom they wished to inform as to the Cowperthwait's position, "as their agents are able to do something in geography matters without much trouble." That "something" was to ensure that Warren's geography textbook, which Cowperthwait published and distributed, would be pushed out of Boston's schools. Cowperthwait's responded that "We should have great pleasure in defining our position with reference to Worcester's Dictionaries, were it not for the implied threat which accompanies your letter. As it is, a decent self-respect prevents our replying to it."[1]

The blackmail was not a bluff. Over the next few months, articles appeared in the Boston press attacking Cowperthwait's books. It took little time (or cleverness, we suspect) to identify the villains: the Merriam brothers. The Boston Daily Advertiser doubted, "if the history of mercantile morality contains a blacker page than is here is closed." Rockefeller and Gates and their similarly monopolistic tactics were yet to come...

The battle raged on through several revisions from both sides for over a decade. The details, like most pages of a real dictionary, are tedious. We'll just condense by saying that, with a ruthless organization behind Webster's, all it took was for the work itself to align itself more with the mass market. That would come in 1864 with the Mahn revision of Webster's dictionary. Green, again:

It is ironic, of course, that the edition of Webster that would confirm his work's success should be almost completely denuded of everything that he had once made central to his labors. Very little of the "nu speling" remained; his guidelines to pronunciation were much altered and, most important of all, the embarrassing, misdirected etymoligies were completely cast aside. This edition, Webster without Websterisms as it were, trounced all opposition. Not only was Worcester vanquished, but Merriams would dominate the dictionary market for another twenty-five years....[2]

A happy ending? A very obstinate, and frankly, unloved man had become a national institution. Dictionaries, and by extension some of the evolution of our language itself, became the exclusive domain of the company who was willing to play dirtiest. Perhaps not a happy ending, but certainly a common one: capitalism wins and a very human (read: fallible and inspired) person becomes an icon and paragon of virtue.

Footnotes

1. Green, p.331
2. Green, p.332

Bibliography

1. Jonathon Green. Chasing the Sun: Dictionary-Makers and the Dictionaries They Made. Henry Holt, 1996.
2. Bill Bryson. The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way. Avon Books, 1990.

 
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