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The Dictionary Wars - The American Fight over the English Language (Hardcover)
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The Dictionary Wars - The American Fight over the English Language (Hardcover)
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A compelling history of the national conflicts that resulted from
efforts to produce the first definitive American dictionary of
English In The Dictionary Wars, Peter Martin recounts the patriotic
fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive
national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755
Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural
war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among
lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for
dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified
American language. The overwhelming questions in the dictionary
wars involved which and whose English was truly American and
whether a dictionary of English should attempt to be American at
all, independent from Britain. Martin tells the human story of the
intense rivalry between America's first lexicographers, Noah
Webster and Joseph Emerson Worcester, who fought over who could
best represent the soul and identity of American culture. Webster
believed an American dictionary, like the American language, ought
to be informed by the nation's republican principles, but Worcester
thought that such language reforms were reckless and went too far.
Their conflict continued beyond Webster's death, when the ambitious
Merriam brothers acquired publishing rights to Webster's American
Dictionary and launched their own language wars. From the beginning
of the nineteenth century to the end of the Civil War, the
dictionary wars also engaged America's colleges, libraries,
newspapers, religious groups, and state legislatures at a pivotal
historical moment that coincided with rising literacy and the print
revolution. Delving into the personal stories and national debates
that arose from the conflicts surrounding America's first
dictionaries, The Dictionary Wars examines the linguistic struggles
that underpinned the founding and growth of a nation.
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