AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
At the close of the Preface to his Compendious Dictionary, Webster
announced his intention of compiling and publishing a full and
comprehensive dictionary of the language. After answering the objections
which candid friends might raise, he added: "From a different class of
men, if such are to be found, whose criticism would sink the literature
of this country even lower than the distorted representations of foreign
reviewers,--whose veneration for transatlantic authors leads them to
hold American writers in unmerited contempt,--from such men I neither
expect nor solicit favor. However arduous the task, and however feeble
my powers of body and mind, a thorough conviction of the necessity and
importance of the undertaking has overcome my fears and objections, and
determined me to make an effort to dissipate the charm of veneration
for foreign authors which fascinates the minds of men in this country
and holds them in the chains of illusion. In the investigation of this
subject great labor is to be sustained, and numberless difficulties
encountered; but with a humble dependence on Divine favor for the
preservation of my life and health, I shall prosecute the work with
diligence, and execute it with a fidelity suited to its importance."
It was 1806 when he sat down to the task, and twenty years of almost
continuous labor were expended before the work then projected was given
to the world in the first edition of the "American Dictionary of the
English Language," in two volumes quarto. Complete absorption in his
work, which could yield nothing until it was completed, crippled his
resources, confined now in the main to copyright from his Spelling-Book;
and in 1812 he removed, as we have already seen, for economy's sake,
from New Haven to Amherst. During the next ten years he nearly completed
the bulk of the Dictionary, but there still remained much to do in the
way of comparison and finer study than his own library afforded. He
returned to New Haven in 1822, but further work there showed the
insufficiency of material to be had in America; and in 1824, leaving his
family, he took with him a son and set out for Europe, for the purpose
of consulting men and books. He spent two months in Paris, where S. G.
Goodrich met him. "A slender form, with a black coat, black
small-clothes, black silk stockings, moving back and forth, with its
hands behind it, and evidently in a state of meditation. It was a
curious, quaint, Connecticut-looking apparition, strangely in contrast
to the prevailing forms and aspects in this gay metropolis. I said to
myself, 'If it were possible, I should say that was Noah Webster!' I
went up to him and found it was indeed he."
He was satisfied that he should work to better advantage in England. He
went accordingly to Cambridge in the early fall of 1824, and remained
there until the following May, using the resources of the University,
and making such connections as he could, though he found rather barren
sympathy from English scholars, and small encouragement from English
publishers. His training and studies, moreover, were not such as to
place him in very cordial relationship with Englishmen, and his attitude
toward the scholastic deposit of an old nation may be guessed from a
passage in one of his letters home, in which he writes: "The colleges
are mostly old stone buildings, which look very heavy, cold, and gloomy
to an American accustomed to the new public buildings in our country."
There is something in the whole undertaking, and in the mode of its
execution, which makes one by turns wonder at the splendid will and
undaunted perseverance of this Yankee teacher, and feel a well-bred
annoyance at his blindness to the incongruous position which he
occupied. One is disposed to laugh sardonically over this self-taught
dictionary-maker, encamped at Cambridge, coolly pursuing his work of an
American Dictionary of the English Language in the midst of all that
traditional scholarship. But Webster's own consciousness was of the
gravity of his work. "When I finished my copy," he writes in a letter to
Dr. Thomas Miner, "I was sitting at my table in Cambridge, England,
January, 1825. When I arrived at the last word I was seized with a
tremor that made it difficult to proceed. I, however, summoned up
strength to finish the work, and then, walking about the room, I soon
recovered." This may be a faint echo of Gibbon's celebrated passage, but
it is inherently truthful, and marks the effect upon him of a sustained
purpose, brought, after a score of years, to completion. The Dictionary
was published three years after his return to America, and passed
through one revision at Mr. Webster's hands in 1840. He was still at
work upon it when he died, in 1843. It is fair to look to the preface of
a great work, especially of one which seems to admit little personality,
for an account of the motives and aims of the workman. In following the
lines of Webster's preface we discover the principles which we have
already noted stated anew and with increasing confidence. He gives
reasons why it had become necessary that an English dictionary should be
revised to meet the exigencies of American as distinct from English
life, and he says finally: "One consideration, however, which is
dictated by my own feelings, but which I trust will meet with
approbation in correspondent feelings in my fellow-citizens, ought not
to be passed in silence; it is this: 'The chief glory of a nation,' says
Dr. Johnson, 'arises from its authors.' With this opinion deeply
impressed on my mind, I have the same ambition which actuated that great
man when he expressed a wish to give celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to
Milton, and to Boyle. I do not, indeed, expect to add celebrity to the
names of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jay, Madison, Marshall, Ramsay,
Dwight, Smith, Trumbull, Hamilton, Belknap, Ames, Mason, Kent, Hare,
Silliman, Cleaveland, Walsh, Irving, and many other Americans
distinguished by their writings or by their science; but it is with
pride and satisfaction that I can place them, as authorities, on the
same page with those of Boyle, Hooker, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Ray,
Milner, Cowper, Thomson, Davy, and Jameson. A life devoted to reading
and to an investigation of the origin and principles of our vernacular
language, and especially a particular examination of the best English
writers, with a view to a comparison of their style and phraseology
with those of the best American writers and with our colloquial usage,
enables me to affirm, with confidence, that the genuine English idiom is
as well preserved by the unmixed English of this country as it is by the
best _English_ writers. Examples to prove this fact will be found in the
Introduction to this work. It is true that many of our writers have
neglected to cultivate taste and the embellishments of style, but even
these have written the language in its genuine _idiom_. In this respect
Franklin and Washington, whose language is their hereditary
mother-tongue, unsophisticated by modern grammar, present as pure models
of genuine English as Addison and Swift. But I may go further, and
affirm with truth that our country has produced some of the best models
of composition. The style of President Smith, of the authors of the
Federalist, of Mr. Ames, of Dr. Mason, of Mr. Harper, of Chancellor
Kent, [the prose]" happily bracketed reservation! "of Mr. Barlow, of Dr.
Channing, of Washington Irving, of the legal decisions of the Supreme
Court of the United States, of the reports of legal decisions in some
of the particular States, and many other writings, in purity, in
elegance, and in technical precision, is equalled only by that of the
best British authors, and surpassed by that of no English compositions
of a similar kind.
"The United States commenced their existence under circumstances wholly
novel and unexampled in the history of nations. They commenced with
civilization, with learning, with science, with constitutions of free
government, and with that best gift of God to man, the Christian
religion. Their population is now equal to that of England; in arts and
sciences our citizens are very little behind the most enlightened people
on earth,--in some respects they have no superiors; and our language
within two centuries will be spoken by more people in this country than
any language on earth, except the Chinese, in Asia, and even that may
not be an exception."
It is instructive to compare the preface with the celebrated one by Dr.
Johnson, introducing his dictionary. Webster, filled with a parochial
enthusiasm for his native country, exaggerates the necessity for a
local dictionary, and anticipates the vast audience that will one day
require his work. To him language is the instrument not so much of
literature as of daily association. He thinks of a dictionary as a book
of reference for the plain reader, and a guide to him in the correct use
of his vernacular. Johnson, proud of his literary heritage, burdened
with a sense of his own inadequacy, at once confesses the dignity of his
work and the melancholy of his own nature. He acknowledges the
limitation of his own philological attainments, and rests his claims to
honor upon the fullness with which he has gathered and arranged the
materials scattered through the vast area of English literature. The one
sees the subject from the side of nationality, the other from that of
literature. Webster is thinking of his own people, Johnson of the
un-national tribe of scholars and men of letters. The historical
associations justify each, for Johnson was distinctly the member of a
great class which was beginning to assert its independence of social
authority. With all his loyalty to his king, he was at heart a
republican in literature, and stoutly denied the divine right of
patrons. His dictionary was the sign of literary emancipation; it was
the witness to an intellectual freedom which might be in alliance with
government, but could not be its tool. The history of English literature
since that date is a democratic history. Webster, on his part, was the
prophet of a national independence, in which language and literature
were involved as inseparable elements. To him books were neither the
production nor the possession of a class, but necessarily incident to
the life of a free people. Hence, in his citation of American
authorities, he is undaunted by the paucity of purely literary men; law
reports and state documents answer his purpose as well. He saw
literature as the accompaniment of self-government, and the dictionary
in his eyes was a vast school-book, not a thesaurus of literature.
I can hardly expect my readers to follow me patiently through a close
examination of the successive editions of Webster's large dictionary,
and I have no such high opinion of my own patience as to suppose that I
should continue on the road after my readers had dropped behind; but it
is possible to make a rough comparison of the first edition of 1828 and
the latest of 1880, in order to see what Webster did which needed to be
undone, and to form some estimate of the substantial service which he
rendered lexicography in that edition which was more nearly his sole and
unaided work.
To take, then, the matter of orthography, there are certain general
classes of words which have borne the brunt of criticism. In his first
edition Webster's rule was to omit _k_ after _c_ from the end of all
words of more than one syllable, and to retain it in longer forms of the
same word only when it was required to defend the hard sound of c. He
wrote thus: _public_, _publication_. But Webster, like writers of
to-day, was constantly allowing his uniform rule to give way in cases
where custom had fastened upon him. Thus he still spelled _traffick_,
_almanack_, _frolick_, _havock_, and it was quite possible for his
critics to follow him through a long list of words of this class and
detect his frequent aberration from a uniform rule. Yet, instead of
receding from his position, the latest edition advances; a nicer
discrimination is made in the etymological origin of the variation, but
in point of practice a much more general conformity to the rule is
recorded. There can be no question that the _k_ has a foreign air when
found in such cases in American books.
Again, Webster omitted the _u_ in the unaccented termination _our_, as
_honor_ for _honour_. In this, too, he was not without English
precedent. Johnson was singularly inconsistent in this respect, and his
influence has extended over English orthography to the present day, so
that one cannot take up a well-printed English journal without
discovering an apparently arbitrary use of the termination. The usage as
recorded by Webster has held its ground, and there is no variation
between the first and latest editions, except that the alternative form
_Saviour_ is given in the latest as a concession to an undefined sense
of sanctity which would lead to a separation of the word from its class.
There is a foot-note in the edition of 1828, in which Washington's
omission of _u_ is cited as an argument in favor of the form _or_.
There is the vexed form _er_ for _re_ in such words as _center_ for
_centre_. It is fair on this point to give the note which Webster
originally made in defense of his position: "A similar fate has attended
the attempt to Anglicize the orthography of another class of words,
which we have received from the French. At a very early period the words
_chambre_, _desastre_, _desordre_, _chartre_, _monstre_, _tendre_,
_tigre_, _entre_, _fievre_, _diametre_, _arbitre_, _nombre_, and others
were reduced to the English form of spelling: _chamber_, _disaster_,
_charter_, _monster_, _tender_, _tiger_, _enter_, _fever_, _diameter_,
_arbiter_, _number_. At a later period, Sir Isaac Newton, Camden,
Selden, Milton, Whitaker, Prideaux, Hook, Whiston, Bryant, and other
authors of the first character attempted to carry through this
reformation, writing _scepter_, _center_, _sepulcher_. But this
improvement was arrested, and a few words of this class retain their
French orthography: such as _metre_, _mitre_, _nitre_, _spectre_,
_sceptre_, _theatre_, _sepulchre_, and sometimes _centre_. It is
remarkable that a nation distinguished for erudition should thus reject
improvements, and retain anomalies, in opposition to all the convenience
of uniformity. I am glad that so respectable a writer as Mitford has
discarded this innovation, and uniformly written _center_, _scepter_,
_theater_, _sepulcher_. In the present instance want of uniformity is
not the only evil. The present orthography has introduced an awkward
mode of writing the derivatives, for example, _centred_, _sceptred_,
_sepulchred_; whereas Milton and Pope wrote these words as regular
derivatives of _center_, _scepter_, _sepulcher_, thus, '_Sceptered_
king.' So Coxe in his travels, 'The principal wealth of the church is
_centered_ in the monasteries.' This is correct."
The two Websters agree in the main, but some of the variations in the
first disappear in the latest. Thus Noah Webster gave the alternative
forms _massacer_, _massacre_, preferring the former, and _aker_, _acre_,
a curious inconsistency; the editors of the latest edition have dropped
these proposed improvements, and have given secondary alternative forms
in _theatre_, _metre_, _centre_, _sepulchre_, _nitre_, and perhaps some
others. Both accept _chancre_, _lucre_, and _ogre_. It may be said in
general that the game on these words is a drawn one, with a stubborn
retention of the _re_ form on the part of the most careful writers, and
a growing majority in numbers in favor of the _er_ form.
In the edition of 1828 Webster laid down the rule that verbs ending in a
single consonant, but having the accent on the first syllable, or on a
syllable preceding the last, ought not to double the final consonant in
the derivatives. Thus he wrote _travel_, _traveler_, _traveling_. The
editors of the latest edition find no occasion to revise this rule, and
report that other lexicographers advise a conformity to it, but they
record a large number of exceptions to satisfy "the prejudice of the
eye." His corresponding rule is "that monosyllabic verbs, ending in a
single consonant, not preceded by a long vowel, and other verbs ending
in a single accented consonant, and of course not preceded by a long
vowel, double the final consonant in all the derivatives which are
formed by a termination beginning with a vowel." This applies to _fit_,
_fitted_, _compel_, _compelled_. This rule, like the other, is retained
by the later editors, though both rules are more exactly framed. No
question has been raised upon this point, and the nice correspondence of
the two rules is likely in process of time to break down those
exceptions to the former which usage now makes familiar.
Does the reader, when he writes, hesitate perilously before the words
_distil_ or _distill_, _control_ or _controll_, _recal_ or _recall_? It
can only be said that neither Webster nor his editors could frame a rule
which they were ready to follow. They agree in their inconsistencies,
and have brought over other lexicographers in some cases to their
disposition to double the _l_. The indecision, however, which one feels
before _skilful_ or _skillful_ is more painful,--are we to say
_painfull_? Here again the first and latest editions of Webster are at
one with each other, and at variance with old and established usage. The
editors of Webster appear to yield the ground a little by conceding that
_skilful_, _dulness_, and like words are so written by many. Webster's
change in this respect seems therefore to have made no headway except in
his own family.
There are other words which may be grouped in classes, but I will
content myself with a further enumeration, somewhat at random, of words
which Webster trifled with, as his enemies might say, or reduced to
order, as he would claim; placing in parallel columns the spelling
adopted in the first edition and that followed in the latest:--
EDITION OF 1828. EDITION OF 1880.
ax ax }
axe}
controller comptroller}
controller }
contemporary contemporary}
cotemporary }
defense defense}
defence}
ambassador embassador}
ambassador}
gantlet} gantlet }
gauntlet} gauntlet}
drouth drought
group} group
groop}
height}
heighth} height}
hight} hight }
maneuver maneuver }
man[oe]uvre}
melasses molasses
mold mold }
mould}
molt molt }
moult}
plow plow }
plough}
tongue} tongue
tung }
wo woe
crum crumb
pontif pontiff
ake } ache
ache}
maiz maize
gimblet gimlet
feather} feather
fether }
steady} steady
steddy}
mosk mosque
ribin ribbon
cutlas cutlass
skain skain}
skein}
sherif sheriff
porpess porpoise
It should be added that in many cases where the later editors have
receded from Webster's advanced position they have added a note
approving his innovation as etymologically correct and preferable. There
can be no doubt that Webster was careless and inconsistent in his entry
of these words, since he would venture his improvement under the word,
fling scorn at the current usage, and then, when using the word
elsewhere in definition or in compounds, forget his improvement and
follow the customary orthography. From our rapid survey of the
orthography, however, it may be said in general that Webster's decision
in the case of classes of words has been maintained in subsequent
editions, but his individual alterations have been regarded as
contributions to an impossibly ideal correct orthography, and quietly
dropped. The fact illustrates Webster's strength and weakness. His
notions on the subject of uniformity were often very sensible, and he
had the advantage of reducing to order what was hopelessly chaotic in
common usage. But his sense of the stability of usage was imperfect, and
when he moved among the words at random, arranging the language to suit
his personal taste, he discovered or his successors did that words have
roots of another kind than what etymologists regard.
Webster was wont to defend himself against the common charge of
proposing new forms of words, by showing that, if one went far enough
back, he would be sure to come upon the same forms in English
literature; that his aim was to restore, not to invent, and to bring
back the language to its earlier and historic shape. This is a defense
familiar to us in these later days of spelling reform; and no one
doubts, who knows the chaos of English spelling before the days of
printing, that authority could be found for any favorite mode of
spelling a word. Webster claimed the same conservative principles in the
matter of pronunciation, and stoutly declared that he was a champion for
historic English sounds as opposed to the innovations offered by
Sheridan, Walker, and Jamieson. "The language of a nation," he says in
his Introduction, "is the common property of the people, and no
individual has a right to make in-roads upon its principles. As it is
the medium of communication between men, it is important that the same
written words and the same oral sounds to express the same ideas should
be used by the whole nation. When any man, therefore, attempts to change
the established orthography or pronunciation, except to correct palpable
errors and produce uniformity by recalling wanderers into the pale of
regular analogies, he offers an indignity to the nation. No local
practice, however respectable, will justify the attempt. There is great
dignity, as well as propriety, in respecting the universal and
long-established usages of a nation. With these views of the subject, I
feel myself bound to reject all modern innovations which violate the
established principles and analogies of the language, and destroy or
impair the value of alphabetical writing. I have therefore endeavored to
present to my fellow-citizens the English language in its genuine
purity, as we have received the inheritance from our ancestors, without
removing a landmark. If the language is fatally destined to be
corrupted, I will not be an instrument of the mischief."
These are certainly brave words, and there are even people who would
doubt if Webster had the courage of such convictions. In his Dictionary
he seems to have somewhat underestimated the importance of noting the
pronunciation. He devotes a number of pages, it is true, in the
Introduction, to a discussion of the principles involved, but in marking
the words he used only the simplest method, and disregarded refinements
of speech. The word culture, for instance, is marked by him [c-]ul´ture,
while in the latest edition it appears as [c-][)u]lt´[=u]re
(k[)u]lt´y[u:]r). He had a few antipathies, as to the _tsh_ sound then
fashionable in such words as _tumult_, and with a certain native
pugnacity he attacked the orthoepists who at that time had elaborated
their system more than had the orthographists; he did not believe that
nice shades of sound could be represented to the eye by characters, and
he appears to have been somewhat impatient of the whole subject. He
maintained that the speech which generally prevailed in New England in
his day represented the best and most historic pronunciation. The first
ministers had been educated at the universities, and the respect felt
for them had led to a general acceptance of their mode of speech. He
himself said _vollum_ for volume, and _p[)a]triot_, and _perce_ for
pierce. He regarded Sheridan, Walker, Perry, Jones, and Jamieson as
having, in their attempts at securing uniformity, only unsettled the old
and familiar speech,--a curious commentary on his own performances in
orthography. He does not here, either, forget his loyalty to America.
"In a few instances," he says, "the common usage of a great and
respectable portion of the people of this country accords with the
analogies of the language, but not with the modern notation of English
orthoepists. In such cases it seems expedient and proper to retain our
own usage. To renounce a practice confessedly regular for one
confessedly anomalous, out of respect to foreign usage, would hardly be
consistent with the dignity of lexicography. When we have principle on
our side, let us adhere to it. The time cannot be distant when the
population of this vast country will throw off their leading-strings,
and walk in their own strength; and the more we can raise the credit and
authority of principle over the caprices of fashion and innovation, the
nearer we approach to uniformity and stability of practice."
The absence of the finer qualities of scholarship in Webster's
composition is indicated by his somewhat rough and ready treatment of
the subject of pronunciation; perhaps no more delicate test exists of
the grain of an educated person's culture than that of pronunciation. It
is far more subtle than orthography or grammar, and pleasure in
conversation, when analyzed, will show this fine sense of sound and
articulation to be the last element.
If any one had asked Webster upon what part of his Dictionary he had
expended the most time and now set the highest value, he would
undoubtedly have answered at once the etymology, and whatever related to
the history and derivation of words. The greater part of the time given
continuously, from 1807 to 1826, to the elaboration of his Dictionary
was spent upon this department; his severest condemnation of Johnson was
upon the score of his ignorance in these particulars, and the credit
which he took to himself was frank and sincere. There can be no doubt
that he worked hard; there can be no doubt, either, that he had his way
to make almost unaided by previous explorers. The science of comparative
philology is of later birth; the English of Webster's day were no better
equipped than he for the task which he undertook, except so far as they
were trained by scholarship to avoid an empirical method. Horne Tooke
was the man who opened Webster's eyes, and him he followed so long as
he followed anybody. But Tooke was a guesser, and Webster, with all his
deficiencies, had always a strong reliance upon system and method. He
made guesses also, but he thought they were scientific analyses, and he
came to the edge of real discoveries without knowing it.
The fundamental weakness of Webster's work in etymology lay in his
reliance upon external likenesses and the limitation of his knowledge to
mere vocabularies. It was not an idle pedantry which made him marshal an
imposing array of words from Oriental languages; he was on the right
track when he sought for a common ground upon which Indo-European
languages could meet, but he lacked that essential knowledge of
grammatical forms, without which a knowledge of the vocabulary is liable
to be misleading. His comparison of languages may be compared to the
earlier labors of students in comparative anatomy who mistook merely
external resemblances for structural homology. It would be idle to
institute any inquiry into the agreement of the 1828 edition with the
latest edition. All of Webster's original work, as he regarded it, has
been swept away, and the etymology reconstructed by Dr. Mahn, of Berlin,
in accordance with a science which did not exist in Webster's day. The
immense labor which Webster expended remains only as a witness to that
indomitable spirit which enabled him to keep steadfastly to his
self-imposed task through years of isolation.
The definitions in Webster's first edition offer an almost endless
opportunity for comment. He found Johnson's definitions wanting in
exactness, and often rather explanations than definitions. For his part
he aimed at a somewhat plainer work. He was under no temptation, as
Johnson was, to use a fine style, but was rather disposed to take
another direction and use an excessive plainness of speech, amplifying
his definition by a reference in detail to the synonymous words. It must
be said, however, that Webster was often unnecessarily rambling in his
account of a word, as when, for instance, under the word _magnanimity_
he writes: "Greatness of mind; that elevation or dignity of soul which
encounters danger and trouble with tranquillity and firmness, which
raises the possessor above revenge, and makes him delight in acts of
benevolence,--which makes him disdain injustice and meanness, and
prompts him to sacrifice personal ease, interest, and safety for the
accomplishment of useful and noble objects;" in the latest Webster the
same terms are used but with a judicious compression. Johnson's account
reads, "Greatness of mind; bravery; elevation of soul." Webster was
disposed also to mingle rather more encyclopædic information with his
definitions than a severer judgment of the limits of a dictionary now
permits. Thus under the word _bishop_, besides illustrative passages, he
gives at length the mode of election in the English Church, and also
that used in the Episcopal Church in America. But this fullness of
description was often a positive addition. Here again a comparison may
be made with Johnson. Under the word _telescope_, Johnson simply says:
"A long glass by which distant objects are viewed." Webster: "An optical
instrument employed in viewing distant objects, as the heavenly bodies.
It assists the eye chiefly in two ways: first, by enlarging the visual
angle under which a distant object is seen, and thus magnifying that
object; and secondly, by collecting and conveying to the eye a larger
beam of light than would enter the naked organ, and thus rendering
objects distinct and visible which would otherwise be indistinct and
invisible. Its essential parts are the _object-glass_, which collects
the beams of light and forms an image of the object, and the _eyeglass_,
which is a microscope by which the image is magnified." The latest
editors have found nothing to change in this definition and nothing to
add, except a long account of the several kinds of telescopes. In the
introduction and the definition of words employed in science Webster was
for the time in advance of Johnson, as the present Webster is far in
advance of the first from the natural increase in the importance and
number of these terms. But Webster did not merely use his advantages; he
had a keener sense than Johnson of the relative weight of such words.
Johnson harbored them as unliterary, but Webster welcomed them as a part
of the growing vocabulary of the people.
Webster claimed to have nearly doubled the number of words given in
Johnson, even after he had excluded a number which found their place in
Johnson. He swelled the list, it is true, by the use of compounds under
_un_ and similar prefixes, but the noticeable fact remains that he
incorporated in the Dictionary a vast number of words which previously
had led a private and secluded life in special word-books. His object
being to make a dictionary for the American people, his ambition was to
produce a book which should render all other books of its class
unnecessary. Webster himself enumerates the words added in his
Dictionary under five heads:--
1. Words of common use, among which he notes: grand-jury, grand-juror,
eulogist, consignee, consignor, mammoth, maltreatment, iceberg,
parachute, malpractice, fracas, entailment, perfectibility, glacier,
fire-warden, safety-valve, savings-bank, gaseous, lithographic,
peninsular, repealable, retaliatory, dyspeptic, missionary, nervine,
meteoric, mineralogical, reimbursable; to quarantine, revolutionize,
retort, patent, explode, electioneer, reorganize, magnetize.
2. Participles of verbs, previously omitted, and often having an
adjective value.
3. Terms of frequent occurrence in historical works, especially those
derived from proper names, such as Shemitic, Augustan, Gregorian.
4. Legal terms.
5. Terms in the arts and sciences. This was then the largest storehouse,
as it has since been, and the reader may be reminded that this great
start in lexicography was coincident with the beginning of modern
scientific research.
The greatest interest, however, which Webster's vocabulary has for us is
in its justification of the title to his Dictionary. It was an American
Dictionary, and no one who examines it attentively can fail to perceive
how unmistakably it grounds itself on American use. Webster had had an
American education; he made his dictionary for the American people, and
as in orthography and pronunciation he followed a usage which was mainly
American, in his words and definitions he knew no authority beyond the
usage of his own country. Webster's Dictionary of 1807 had already
furnished Pickering with a large number of words for his vocabulary of
supposed Americanisms, and Webster had replied, defending the words
against the charge of corruption; the Dictionary of 1828 would have
supplied many more of the same class. The Americanism, as an English
scholar of that day would have judged it, was either in the word itself
or in some special application of it. Webster, like many later writers,
pointed out that words which had their origin in English local use had
here simply become of general service, owing to the freedom of movement
amongst the people and the constant tendency toward uniformity of
speech. The subject has been carefully treated, and it is unnecessary to
consider it here. Enough for us to remember that Webster was not
singling out words as Americanisms, but incorporating in the general
language all these terms, and calling the record of entire product an
American Dictionary of the English Language. The reader may be
entertained by a selection of these words and definitions, taken
somewhat at random from the vast number of undiscriminated words in the
Dictionary, and containing often Webster's rather angry championship.
"Whittle, _v. t._ To pare, or cut off the surface of a thing with a
small knife. Some persons have a habit of _whittling_, and are rarely
seen without a penknife in their hands for that purpose. [_This is, I
believe, the only use of this word in New England._]
"Tackle, _v. t._ To harness; as to tackle a horse into a gig, sleigh,
coach, or wagon. [_A legitimate and common use of the word in America._]
2. To seize; to lay hold of; as, a wrestler tackles his antagonist. This
is a common popular use of the word in New England, though not elegant.
But it retains the primitive idea, to put on, to fall or throw on." The
former of these definitions is followed in the latest Webster by the
brief parentheses [Prov. Eng. Colloq. U. S.].
"Roiling, _ppr._ Rendering turbid; or exciting the passion of anger.
[NOTE: This word is as legitimate as any in the language.]
"Memorialist, _n._ One who writes a memorial. _Spectator._ 2. One who
presents a memorial to a legislative or other body, or to a person. _U.
States._
"Emporium. A place of merchandize; a town or city of trade;
particularly, a city or town of extensive commerce, or in which an
extensive commerce centers, or to which sellers and buyers resort from
different countries: such are London, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. New York
will be an emporium.
"Emptyings, _n._ The lees of beer, cider, etc.
"Fall, _n._ The fall of the leaf; the season when leaves fall from
trees; the autumn.
"Avails, _n._, _plu._ Profits or proceeds. It is used in New England for
the proceeds of goods sold, or for rents, issues, or profits.
"Ball, _n._ An entertainment of dancing; originally and peculiarly at
the invitation and expense of an individual; but the word is used in
America for a dance at the expense of the attendant.
"Beadle. An officer in a university whose chief business is to walk with
a mace, before the masters, in a public procession; or, as in America,
before the president, trustees, faculty, and students of a college in a
procession, at public commencements.
"Commemoration, _n._ The act of calling to remembrance, by some
solemnity; the act of honoring the memory of some person or event, by
solemn celebration. The feast of shells at Plymouth, in Massachusetts,
is an annual commemoration of the first landing of our ancestors in
1620.
"Calculate, _v. i._ To make a computation; as, we calculate better for
ourselves than for others. In _popular use_, this word is often
equivalent to _intend_ or _purpose_, that is, to make arrangements and
form a plan; as, a man _calculates_ to go a journey. This use of the
word springs from the practice of _computing_ or _estimating_ the
various circumstances which concur to influence the mind in forming its
determinations.
"Shaver, _n._ A boy or young man. This word is still in common use in
New England. It must be numbered among our original words.
"Span, _n._ A _span of horses_ consists of two of nearly the same color,
and otherwise nearly alike, which are usually harnessed side by side.
The word signifies properly the same as _yoke_, when applied to horned
cattle, from buckling or fastening together. But in America, _span_
always implies resemblance in color at least; being an object of
ambition with gentlemen and with teamsters to unite two horses abreast
that are alike.
"Likely, _a._ Such as may be liked; pleasing; as a _likely_ man or
woman. [This use of _likely_ is not obsolete as Johnson affirms, nor is
it vulgar. But the English and their descendants in America differ in
the application. The English apply the word to external appearance; and
with them _likely_ is equivalent to _handsome_, _well-formed_, as a
_likely_ man, a _likely_ horse. In America the word is usually applied
to the endowments of the mind, or to pleasing accomplishments. With us a
_likely_ man is a man of good character and talents, or of good
dispositions or accomplishments, that render him pleasing or
respectable.]
"Clever, _a._ In _New England_, good-natured, possessing an agreeable
mind or disposition. In _Great Britain_ this word is applied to the body
or its movements, in its literal sense; in _America_ it is applied
chiefly to the mind, temper, disposition. In Great Britain a _clever
man_ is a dextrous man, one who performs an act with skill or address.
In New England a _clever man_ is a man of a pleasing, obliging
disposition and amiable manners, but often implying a moderate share of
talents.
"Raise, _v. t._ To cause to grow; to procure to be produced, bred or
propagated; as, to raise wheat, barley, hops, etc.; to _raise_ horses,
oxen, or sheep. _New England_. [The English now use _grow_ in regard to
crops; as, to _grow_ wheat. This verb intransitive has never been used
in New England in a transitive sense, until recently some persons have
adopted it from the English books. We always use _raise_, but in New
England it is never applied to the breeding of the human race, as it is
in the Southern States.]
"Realize, _v. t._ To bring into actual existence and possession; to
render tangible or effective. He never _realized_ much profit from his
trade or speculation.
"Locate, _v. t._, 2. To select, survey, and settle the bounds of a
particular tract of land; or to designate a portion of land by limits;
as, to _locate_ a tract of a hundred acres in a particular township. _U.
States._ 3. To designate and determine the place of; as, a committee was
appointed to _locate_ a church or a court-house. _N. England._
"Rail, _n._, 1. A cross beam fixed at the ends in two upright posts.
_Moxon_. [In New England this is never called a _beam_; pieces of timber
of the proper size for rails are called _scantling_.] 2. In the _United
States_ a piece of timber cleft, hewed, or sawed, rough or smooth,
inserted in upright posts for fencing. The common _rails_ among farmers
are rough, being used as they are split from the chestnut or other
trees. The _rails_ used in fences of boards or pickets round gentlemen's
houses and gardens are usually sawed scantling, and often dressed with
the plane. 4. A series of posts connected with cross beams, by which a
place is inclosed. _Johnson._ In New England we never call this series a
_rail_, but by the general term _railing_. In a picket fence, the pales
or pickets rise above the rails; in a ballustrade, or fence resembling
it, the ballusters usually terminate in the rails.
"Tallow, _n._ A sort of animal fat, particularly that which is obtained
from animals of the sheep and ox kinds.... The fat of swine we never
call _tallow_, but _lard_ or _suet_. I see in English books, mention is
made of the tallow of hogs, but in America I never heard the word thus
applied.
"Prairy, _n._ [Fr. _prairie_.] An extensive tract of land, mostly level,
destitute of trees, and covered with tall, coarse grass. These
_prairies_ are numerous in the United States, west of the Alleghany
Mountains, especially between the Ohio, Mississippi, and the great
lakes.
"Widen, _v. t._ To make wide or wider; to extend in breadth; as, to
_widen_ a field; to _widen_ a breach. [Note. In America, females say, to
_widen_ a stocking.]
"Window, _n._ An opening in the wall of a building for the admission of
light, and of air when necessary. This opening has a frame on the sides,
in which are set movable sashes, containing panes of glass. In the U.
States the sashes are made to rise and fall, for the admission or
exclusion of air. In France _windows_ are shut with frames or sashes
that open and shut vertically, like the leaves of a folding door.
"Chore, _n._ [Eng. _char._] In America this word denotes small work of a
domestic kind, as distinguished from the principal work of the day. It
is generally used in the plural, _chores_, which includes the daily or
occasional business of feeding cattle and other animals, preparing fuel,
sweeping the house, cleaning furniture, etc. (See char.)"
* * * * *
From these examples one may gather some notion of Webster's method of
treating words which were either exclusively American, or had undergone
some change in meaning and use. He regards them all not as departures
from the English standard of the day, but diversities from an older use,
like the English current forms, and it was no disgrace in his eyes for a
word to be an Americanism, nor did it require apology or defense of any
kind. There are indeed many words not to be found in Johnson, of
American origin, or at least of American adoption, which he enters
silently with the belief that they have quite as fair a claim to a place
in his Dictionary as if they had been used by Dryden or Addison. I have
already quoted the passage in his preface relating to the illustrative
quotations; the promise made by Webster is faithfully kept, and the
diligent reader may garner many of the brief thoughts of Mason, Smith,
Barlow, and other American writers whose light has now faded.
By all these means, by a certain contempt of Great Britain, by constant
reference to American usage, by citations from American authors, Webster
made the title to his Dictionary good in every part of it, while by the
exercise of individual caprice and of a personal authority, which had
grown out of his long-continued and solitary labor, he attached his own
name to it. Both names remain. The existing Dictionary is "An American
Dictionary of the English Language," and bears indubitable evidence of
its application to American use, but it is no longer the organ of an
over-zealous patriotism. It bears Noah Webster's name on the title-page,
but the work has been revised, not out of all likeness to its original
form, but with a fullness and precision which, being impossible to any
one man, required the coöperation of a company of scholars. His original
Preface to the edition of 1828 has been preserved as a memento of his
attitude in the presence of his great work, but his Introduction and
Advertisement and Grammar of the English Language have been swept away,
and their place supplied by the maturer and more scholarly work of
Webster's successors.
It has been said by some nice critic, anxious to be just before he was
generous, that the book commonly known as Webster's Dictionary,
sometimes, with a ponderous familiarity, as The Unabridged, should more
properly be called The Webster Dictionary, as indicating the fact that
the original private enterprise had, as it were, been transformed into a
joint stock company, which might, out of courtesy, take the name of the
once founder but now merely honorary member of the literary firm engaged
in the manufacture and arrangement of words. Indeed, the name Webster
has been associated with such a vast number of dictionaries of all sizes
and weights, that it has become to many a most impersonal term, and we
may almost expect in a few generations to find the word "Webster"
defined in some revised edition of the Unabridged as the colloquial word
for a Dictionary. The bright-eyed, bird-like looking gentleman who faces
the title-page of his Dictionary may be undergoing some metempsychosis,
but the student of American literature will at any time have little
difficulty in rescuing his personality from unseemly transmigration,
and, by the aid of historical glasses, may discover that the Dictionary
maker, far from being either the arid, bloodless being which his work
supposes, or the reckless disturber of philological peace which his
enemies aver, was an exceedingly vigilant, determined American
school-master, who had enormous faith in his country, and an uncommon
self-reliance, by which he undertook single-handed a task which, once
done, prepared the way for lexigraphical work far more thorough and
satisfactory than could have been possible without his pioneer labor.
Not only have the successive Dictionaries which bear his name resulted
from his labor, but it is not unfair to refer the other great lexicon
begun and carried out by one of his early assistants to the impetus
which he gave. Indeed, the commercial success of the great American
Dictionary may reasonably have been taken as a ground of confidence for
the production of the corresponding works of an encyclopædic and
dictionary character which attest the enterprise of American publishers
and the thoroughness of American scholars.