Dictionary Day

Today is National Dictionary Day in the US. The date was chosen because it was the birthday of the great American lexicographer Noah Webster, who was born on 16 October 1758, three years after the publication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary in England.

 

Webster was originally a schoolteacher, who wrote a phenomenally successful spelling book - by 1869 80 million copies had been sold. His primary interest was to promote a specifically American English and it is Webster who is responsible for the American spellings -or, as opposed to -our (as in color/colour), -k instead of the French -que (check/cheque, masque/mask) and -er instead of the French-influenced -re (center/centre, theater/theatre). He dropped the k from English words such as musick and magick (British English dropped it later, too) and offered wimman and wimmen as alternative spellings of woman and women. His great work, the American Dictionary of the English Language, was published in 1828.

 

There's not much in the British press today about Dictionary Day, but here's one article from The Independent newspaper.

Comments

[john]

I never realised those differences were "engineered in" as opposed to being the result of a gradual evolution.

Can I assume that the "S / Z" differences came about by his hand also?

"Realize" as opposed to "Realise"?

Same for "defense" vs. "defence" I suppose.

Are there any other examples of this type of broad scale, intentional differences elsewhere?

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, John. I think that most US/British spelling differences - but not all - are due to Webster. See this Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-ce.2C_-se

The -ise and -se spellings are associated with French, and, of course, Britain has a historical connection with the Norman French.

Although one talks of Australian English, Canadian English etc, these varieties tend to either copy US spellings or (more usually, I think) British spellings - they haven't developed their own versions, as far as I know. However, the situation is different as regards vocabulary, where a word might have a particular meaning in Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand etc.

[John]

Susan,

What is the derivation of the two variations of "grey/gray". Is that a British / North American difference or is there another explanation?

Thanks.

[Virtual Linguist]

Good question, John. For once it's not a British/ North American difference. At the entry 'Grey' in Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 we read '(More properly written 'gray'.) See GRAY.' Throughout history both spellings have been popular in Britain. There are citations in the OED from Shakespeare (1600) and Byron (1820) who write 'grey' and Spenser (1590) and Coleridge (1816) who write 'gray'. In the 1890s James Murray, the editor of the OED, put out a special request to find out which version was most common (the answers he received told him that 'grey' was more common. The OED says that in the 20th century grey became the established British spelling, and gray the established North American spelling. Quite why, I don't know.

[John]

Thanks Susan.