For a pair of countries that share so much history (read David Hackett Fischer’s fascinating Albion’s Seed if you don’t believe me), England and the United States are curiously divided on words and how to use them. Or spell them.
The fact that we’re still talking about it in 2013 just proves the theme of this piece about Noah Webster by Christopher Zara at Glittersnipe:
A reformist in the purest sense of the word, Webster believed that adopting a unified American language was vital to the collective consciousness of the young nation. He was determined to either usher in that new language or die trying, … [because] for Webster, the dictionary meant more than just choosing the word “cookie” over “biscuit” or preferring “garbage” to “rubbish.” It meant solidifying a national identity for a nation that was still very much in the midst of an identity crisis. Were we a real country or a scattershot collection of colonies? Webster knew that the answer resided not in boundaries and borders, but in words.
When I was researching my previous post, I read about Webster, of course—but not that he was such a stickler. (I’ll bet he would love the Dictionary of American Regional English.) And ¡Viva la revolución! I’m proud to know the dictionary I use today is a direct descendent of Mr. Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language.
Tweet: For a pair of countries that share so much history, England & the US are curiously divided on words.
Tweet: Noah Webster led America’s second great revolution.
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