The Dictionary Wars I: Noah Webster

In Brief

We don't think much about the dictionaries on our shelves. If you live in America, it's very likely you've got a Webster's on your shelf and if that's the case you may be quite surprised to find out about the man who wrote it. A humorless, arrogant old goon, Noah Webster is now praised as a militant patriot and Christian stalwart, when he really just bugged the crap out of people and wrote a lousy dictionary.

Party On

You might also be interested in: The Dictionary Wars II: Webster vs. Worcester A battle between two Dictionaries captures the imaginations of pre-Civil War America The Dictionary Wars III Why Noah Webster won the Dictionary Wars -- even after he died. 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.

What is the most respected authority in the American household? Newsweek? Dr. Spock's guides to child rearing? Dare we guess the Bible? Don't be ridiculous. The answer is The Dictionary. It can stop a Scrabble game faster than a trayful of consonants,[1] and is the last word in any argument etymologic, semantic or lexicographic. Even the sacred writings are interpreted, but most people will just grab whatever Dictionary they have on their shelf, regardless of age, publisher or edition and treat it like the literal word of God. Think we're exaggerating? See what Christian Technologies, Inc. has to say about the famous Webster's Dictionary:

No other dictionary compares with the Webster's 1828 dictionary. The English language has changed again and again and in many instances has become corrupt. "The American Dictionary of the English Language" is based upon God's written word, for Noah Webster used the Bible as the foundation for his definitions... The 1828 dictionary reflects our nation's Christian heritage, and the Christian philosophy for life, government, and education.[2]

Apparently the good folks at CTI think that a blatant disregard for facts and history is a fine Christian philosophy for education.[3] Placing so much faith in such a human institution as a dictionary is, as they say, all fun and games until someone loses an eye. The most famous dictionary maker of them all, Samuel Johnson, allowed in a rare moment of humility that his dictionary would go out of date. He noted, "no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some are fading away."[4] But our friends at Christian Technologies are in very good company when they lament that the English Language has become corrupt. The New York Times was aghast at the publication of the 1961 Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Philip Grove, the editor of the new dictionary, was of the school of thought that the dictionary ought to call it like it is[5] and included words such as ain't, allowed that in common usage flout was often used as a synonym for flaunt, and other such perversions. The Times solemnly announced it would continue to use the 1934 version of Webster's work.

Look up Self-Aggrandizement

As the more astute readers have by now deduced, the point here is that the Dictionary, on which we place such an immense burden of responsibility, is written by imperfect humans. We ought to be a bit more skeptical knowing the humans who wrote it were as often scoundrels and liars as they were gentleman and scholars. We'll start with this Noah Webster character. The man widely regarded as the father of the American dictionary, the man whose very name is a synonym for 'dictionary' to this day? Bill Bryson, author of The Mother Tongue, pulls no punches:

Noah Webster (1758-1843) was by all accounts a severe, correct, humorless, religious, temperate man who was not easy to like, even by other severe, religious, temperate, humorless people. A provincial schoolteacher and not-very-successful lawyer from Hartford, he was short, pale, smug, and boastful... Where Samuel Johnson[6] spent his free hours drinking and discoursing in the company of other great men, Webster was a charmless loner who critized almost everyone but was himself not above stealing material from others... He credited himself with coining many words... which in fact had been in the language for centuries...[7]

Which is where we get to why the home-schooling superchristian crowd likes Noah so much. His 1828 magnum opus, American Dictionary of the English Language, was the result of decades of work, yet we find not one acknowledgment to his publisher, his proofreader, or his friends. Rather the book is dedicated solely to God. Fair enough, even admirable, at first glance, until you realize God is probably the only one whose material he didn't steal to finish his lexicon. This stingy dedication is likely the basis of the enduring myth that Webster based his definitions on the word of God. Huh? The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, while Jesus himself spoke Aramaic. While the wisdom of God certainly works in any language,[8] we don't feel we're being too difficult if we insist that matters of orthography and lexicography be based on same-language sources.

An Occasion to Celib(r)ate!

In any case, Noah Webster certainly felt his work was a work worthy of divine inspiration. He saw it as nothing less than a way to define a new American tongue, a creation that would finally mark his country as an entity truly independent from Great Britain. Along this vein, he said something that we suspect people still agree with: "The most difficult task now to be performed by the advocates of pure English is to restrain the influence of men learned in Greek and Latin but ignorant of their own tongue."[9] This tradition of pooh-poohing all things foreign is perhaps one of America's proudest. In line with another tradition, Noah was as puritan as they get. He even published a censored Bible in 1833, proclaiming it "the most important enterprise of [his] life."

His version retained every incident but changed words ad lib, offering thousands of alterations, every one dedicated to euphemisms and absolute decency. Typical is the story of the self-abusive Onan who, rather than "spill his seed" "frustrates his purpose." Testicles become "peculiar members" and female genitals, and even wombs, are conspicuous only by their absence.[10]

In a frightening turn of events (though perhaps not too shocking), the State of Connecticut adopted this Bible in 1835, but fortunately the tide then turned and the Webster Bible gracefully retreated into obscurity. To finish up our American habits kick, we will simply note that the Father of the American Dictionary could never have been the Father of the American Country.

Webster's main concern "was not to celebrate American life or to expand independence [but] to counteract social disruption and reestablish the deferential world order that he believed was disintegrating." To misunderstand the true meaning of a word was to pave the way to social disorder.[11]

A Regular Man of the People

We should not therefore be surprised to read some of his definitions. That great American ideal, freedom, was, among other things, a "violation of the rules of decorum." A Democrat was "a person who attempts an undue opposition or influence over government by means of private clubs, secret intrigues, or by public popular meetings which are extraneous to the Constitution," while a Republican was a "[friend] of our representative Governments." Are we too quick to criticize from our present day vantage? Of course: that's what History House is all about. But we are not alone. Here's what one contemporary had to say:

The general execution of his work is poor... The mere perusal of his Preface is sufficient to show that he is but slenderly qualified for the undertaking. There is everywhere a great parade of erudition, and a great lack of real knowledge;... we do not recollect ever to have witnessed... a greater number of crudities and errors, or more pains taken to so little purpose.[12]

The story of how this intensely quirky dictionary written by a stodgy old fundamentalist who basically hated people got to be such a national treasure is best left for next time. Until then, remember that someone wrote your dictionary. It did not spring, fully formed, from the foam of your cappuccino. We'll discover how publishing companies, rather than scholars or "The People" got to be in charge of our language.

Footnotes

1. Unless all players involved are Czechs
2. http://www.idir.net/~cti/websters.htm
3. We don't think ignorance and pig-headed refusal to face the facts in one's face are a good foundation for any philosophy of education, Christian or not. But there are plenty of Christians out there preaching Creationism who seem to disagree.
4. Bryson p.151
5. The descriptive school of thought, as opposed to the prescriptive school of thought which belives dictionaries should describe the language as it ought to be used. Or at least as they think it ought to be used.
6. Johnson deserves his own story and may one day get one
7. Bryson, p.154-5
8. God's representatives in the friendly city of The Vatican didn't get this message until just thirty years ago, when they finally gave up on the Latin mass.
9. Green, p.312
10. Green, p.314
11. Green, p.324
12. Green, p.324. To be fair, this review was from a Scottish periodical. Its reception in America was generally positive, though nothing that presaged what was to come.

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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