Websterisms: A Collection of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Father of American English

by Noah Webster, Arthur Schulman (Editor), Jill Lepore (Introduction)

"A national language is a national tie, and what country wants it more than America?"
-- Noah WebsterWhat makes American English American? In 1800, irascible patriot Noah Webster set out to answer this question by tirelessly recording the vocabulary of a novel breed -- the American citizen. Though he was a political conservative, his "American Dictionary of the English Language" was born out of his deeply held and profoundly democratic conviction that language was by and for the people. A word's popularity, no matter how lowly its origins, was its criterion for inclusion. Webster's original American dictionary, the granddaddy of them all, helped define the American character.

In a light-footed introductory essay, Harvard historian and "New Yorker" contributor Jill Lepore brilliantly revives the curmudgeonly Webster: his rigor, his passion for words, and his paradoxical ideas about language and politics. Arthur Schulman, longtime crossword puzzle creator for "The New York Times," has culled fifteen hundred of Webster's entries from the original book, revealing Webster's interpretive powers as well as his pervasive moralism. Incisively annotated and delightfully illustrated with quotes from contemporary American sources, these excerpts paint a fascinating picture of a budding Republic.

For everyone who's ever gone to "look it up in Webster's" "Websterisms" offers a crisp new view both of the man justifiably called the Founding Father of American English and of his magnum opus. It took Webster twenty-eight years to compile and publish his monumental work, during which time he was much mocked: what could American English be but a perversion of the King's English? But his dictionary stuck, and its influence grew and grew. We still use most of the words Webster defined, like "spank" and "caucus." Others, like "musquash," haven't fared as well. "Websterisms" tells the tale of a language that once was and that lives on.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2008

About the author

Noah Webster, Jr. (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843), was a lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education". His blue-backed speller books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read, secularizing their education. According to Ellis (1979) he gave Americans "a secular catechism to the nation-state".

Webster's name has become synonymous with "dictionary" in the United States, especially the modern Merriam-Webster dictionary that was first published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. He is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the nation.

Reviews

[Ed Erwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It takes a special kind of person to read a dictionary for fun. I thought I might be that kind of person, but after eight slow months it turns out I'm not. Good to know!

Jill Lepore's introduction is great. After that it is just excerpts from Webster's dictionary chosen to illustrate Webster's thought and prejudices and mistakes. It is occasionally interesting, but still, it's a dictionary. In small type. So, pretty rough.

I wrote a longer, much more interesting review that would have been totally exciting, but my computer caught a virus while I tried to determine whether Webster was the only person to refer to the planet Neptune as "Herschell" and I'm not going to write that review twice. Each person has only one masterpiece in them. For Webster, it was his dictionary. For me, it was probably my lost review.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Who reads a dictionary for pleasure?", is the question from one of the back-cover blurbs for this abridgment of Webster's classic 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Schulman has compiled 1,500 of the most interesting words from the list, and along with Jill Lepore, provides an introduction to Webster's effort and a brief biography of the man himself.

Now, your next question is likely to be "how can a list of words and definitions be interesting."? Well, Webster had a purpose in writing his dictionary and it went far beyond spelling (although he had an agenda there as well). He meant to inform, instruct, and inspire his readers. Webster was a devout Christian who made no apologies for it, and many of his definitions are short sermons. Indeed, in light of his need for the dictionary to sell well to meet the financial needs of his family, his inclusion of so much Christian thought and theology in his dictionary says much about the audience that would be receiving it. Make no mistake, America might not have had a Christian government, but it was a Christian nation in population, presumption practice, and purchasing power in 1828.

Not enough to convince you to pick up this greatest-hits version of the original Webster? OK, Webster was also strong-willed and sure in his likes and dislikes, and had the personality of a professor, so his entries are now instructive and amusing for several other reasons which I'll illustrate with some examples pulled from the letter G:

Usage: Webster unequivocally states that "Gun" was never used to refer to a pistol. He also delights in calling out differences in usage between England and America.

Spelling: Webster had very definite views on spelling, some based on his theories of simplification and standardization, and some on his etymologies. Groom, as in "bridegroom", he insisted should be spelled and pronounced "goom" based on its origins.

Definitions: Webster was not just a reflection of his times, but as a man of definite ideas was at times surprisingly modern, yet reflexively racist and sexist. For example a "Gipsy" is a race of "vagabonds which infest Europe, Africa and Asia, strolling about and subsisting mostly by theft, robbery, and fortune-telling"! To his credit, however, he is strong abolitionist.

Shifts in meaning: Webster's staunch certitude, plus nearly 200 years of intervening usage, has resulted in definitions that seem oddly out of place today. For example, "giddy" refers to loss of balance, but apparently not then as now to the mental state of silliness that reflects a figurative loss of balance in a positive way.

Synonyms and shades of meaning: Especially in adjectives that describe action or emotion, Webster takes particular care to illustrate slight differences in meaning. He spends some time describing different types of "gales", many of them particular to the main motive power of ships in his day that mean nothing to us today, but are interesting in what they reveal about his world.

Etymology: Webster did all of his own writing and research (this was no group effort like the Oxford English Dictionary) and spent a great deal of time tracing word roots in search of proof of a single pre-Babel ur-language. Given the limitation of his skills and resources available form 1800 to 1828 when he was compiling his dictionary, some of his etymologies are amusing. "Gazette" (as in a small newspaper) is said to originate from the Venetion coin gazetta, which was the price of the first . . . Gazette). His entries on "Mother" and "Mud" are worth the price of admission alone--yes, Webster claims they have the same roots, an idea you might want to try out on your own mother at just the right moment. Let me know how that goes!

So perhaps I have answered the question in the title in a way that convinces you to read this little gem. I'll confess, I would not have picked this book up if I had not just read H. L. Mencken's classic The American Language-4th Editin, which referenced Webster often (while the Mencken I read and reviewed was a very old used copy, it is available in newer abridged editions from Amazon). And as a fellow crusty old curmudgeon himself, Mencken had very specific ideas about language and Webster that makes this an interesting pair to read together, that will tune your ear to the nuances of language you hear every day and every place.