Peter Martin: The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight Over the English Language
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Peter Martin: The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight Over the English Language Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2018, 328 pp., Illustrated, $29.95, Hardcover, ISBN: 9780691188911 Gretchen Trinker Webster1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
The Dictionary Wars is a readable account of how the titans of American lexicography, Webster and Merriam and others, fought for dominance in formulating a truly American language. Written by Peter Martin, a biographer of Samuel Johnson and other historical figures, The Dictionary Wars takes an historic look at the battles fought over American independence—linguistic independence—from Britain. Americans’ struggle to throw off the tyranny of British rule extended to their mutual language, according to Martin. “This book is about the turbulent birth pangs of the American language and the American dictionary,” he says in the opening sentences of the book’s preface. “The word wars in its title spotlights the militancy that characterized the development of the English language in America.” In the eighteenth century, a peculiarly American language was seen by some new Americans as an integral component of an independent republic. But others thought “corruption” of the centuries-old British English was a travesty. What followed were years of linguistic strife while the ownership of the “bible” of language—the dictionary—was contested. The Dictionary Wars traces both the battles and development of the modern-day dictionary from Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in 1755, which many considered the first major dictionary of the language, to (spoiler alert) the winner of the dictionary wars—the Merriams and the newspapers, according to Martin. Although the Merriam brothers were ultimately the winners, the Webster clan’s interest in an American language dictionary started long before the Merriams got involved. Noah Webster, known to be a cranky and arrogant man, began a militant mission to reform British English into an American language in the early years of the new republic. The Dictionary Wars traces Webster’s journey from his first efforts
* Gretchen Trinker Webster [email protected] 1
Fairfield, CT, USA
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to change English spelling to his eventual success publishing at least a dozen editions of an American dictionary. When Noah Webster died in 1843 with a copy of his early spelling book in his hands, the Merriam Brothers took advantage of the family feuds and legal battles raging in the Webster family over the rights to Noah’s dictionary empire. Martin describes the Merriams as ambitious and courageous, and already successful publishers of legal books, school books and Bibles. Taking financial risks themselves, the Merriams provided the money and the energy to publish the new Webster editions after Noah Webster’s death. The history of the American dictionary wars continues into the twentieth century with the Merriams facing numerous challenges over their efforts to publish th
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