Webster’s New International Dictionary (of the English Language)

16 10, 2023

Dictionary Day

By |2023-10-12T08:43:54-05:00October 16th, 2023|Holidays, Writer's Life, Writing Craft|1 Comment

This day honors Noah Webster, the man who fathered the American Dictionary. It’s one of my favorite holidays because I love dictionaries.

As a child, I’d spend hours poring through the pages of my grandmother’s eight-inch-thick Webster’s New International Dictionary (of the English Language). It was a fertile resource for a blossoming logophile or, as I prefer to call myself – a wordsmith.

The ancient leather-bound book with its India-skin paper had leather alphabet tabs cut into the pages. The detailed illustrations and maps are gorgeous. There were diagrams, charts, and thousands of words.

With so many dictionary resources readily available online, it’s easy to believe a hard copy isn’t necessary anymore. I disagree. Every home should have at least one realio-trulio paper dictionary available.

All sorts of wonderful magical stuff can happen when you use a hardcopy dictionary instead of looking up definitions online.

Your finger glides over other words as it scrolls down the printed page. Words that you might never have seen right there at your fingertips. You can see a word’s origin and its root without clicking to a different screen for synonyms and antonyms.

Yes, all that’s included with online dictionaries, but do you scroll down to discover the rest of the entry?

Probably not.

Understanding meaning is important. I learned that from my British antiques business partner. His British accent and my Texas drawl tended to muddle discussions and complicate purchases for the shop when the English and American definitions didn’t match. The King’s English Dictionary he gave me saved us many times over.

Spelling can be a problem no matter what type of dictionary you use. I stump spell checkers 90% of the time. Plus, spell checkers don’t give definitions.

I keep 20,000 WORDS by Louis A. Leslie side-by-side with my dictionary for fast lookup of commonly misspelled words. This little jewel gets me through my writing day.

While you may never love dictionaries as I do, I still recommend you have a hard-copy dictionary handy. You never know what you might learn.

17 10, 2022

Why I love Noah Webster

By |2022-10-16T12:44:49-05:00October 17th, 2022|Holidays, Make Me Think Monday|1 Comment

A day to honor Noah Webster’s birthday on October 16, 1758. You probably recognize the name.

Webster is the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” and author of the Blue-Backed Speller which taught generations of American school children to read and spell.

Because he disliked the complexity of English spelling rules, he streamlined our American way of spelling certain words like “color” instead of the English spelling of “colour.” His first dictionary was published in 1806.

A year later he began work on a more comprehensive dictionary, which took him twenty-seven years to finish. He learned twenty-six languages to evaluate the etymology of the seventy thousand words included in the work.

As a child, I spent hours poring through the pages of my grandmother’s eight-inch thick copy of Webster’s New International Dictionary (of the English Language).

The fifteen-pound book had leather alphabet tabs cut into the pages. The illustrations were detailed and the maps gorgeous. There were diagrams, charts, and thousands of words. It was a fertile resource for a blossoming logophile or wordsmith as I prefer to call myself.

Wonderful magical stuff can happen when you use a print dictionary. You discover word origins and its root which can give a deeper understanding of meaning. You also find synonyms and antonyms that provide possibilities for rewriting or a totally new idea.

Sure, you can get all that in a nanosecond online. But do you scroll down to discover all that? Probably not. Even if you do, you miss all those other words your finger glides over as it scrolls down the printed page. Words that you might never have seen.

As an author, I keep a print copy of Webster’s Dictionary closeby, and I use it often along with the online versions.

Authors and anyone who publishes also have another reason to appreciate Noah Webster. He played a role in forming the Copyright Act of 1831, which extended copyrights from fourteen to twenty-eight years with an option of renewal for another fourteen years. That changed with even greater protections under The Copyright Act of 1976, but Noah Webster started the copyright ball rolling.

Thank you, Mr. Webster, for your hard work. You do deserve a national day of recognition.

6 11, 2017

For the Love of Dictionaries

By |2017-11-04T19:45:54-05:00November 6th, 2017|Make Me Think Monday|1 Comment

With so many dictionary resources readily available on-line, it’s easy to believe a hard copy isn’t necessary anymore. It’s my firm belief every home should have at least one realio-trulio paper dictionary readily available.

My love of dictionaries began as a child when I’d spend hours poring through the pages of my grandmother’s eight inches thick Webster’s New International Dictionary (of the English Language).

The ancient leather bound book with its India skin paper had leather alphabet tabs cut in the pages. The illustrations were detailed and the maps gorgeous. There were diagrams, charts, and thousands of words.

It was a fertile resource for a blossoming logophile or, as I prefer to call myself – wordsmith.

I love print dictionaries because all sorts of wonderful magical stuff can happen when you read a dictionary.

You discover a word’s origin and its root. Both can give deeper understanding of the word’s meaning. The lists of synonyms and antonyms given with the meaning provide possibilities for rewriting or a totally new idea.

True, you can get all that in a nano second on-line. But do you scroll down to discover all that? Probably not.

Even if you do, you miss all those other words your finger glides over as it scrolls down the printed page. Words that you might never have seen.

You’d miss things like how “patina” comes after “patient” in the dictionary. When you consider patient describes how to endure time, and patina describes time’s residue, that’s thought-provoking. An on-line dictionary won’t help you discover unique things like that.

Spelling can be a problem no matter what type of dictionary you use. I’m a terrible speller who stumps spell checker 90% of the time. That’s why I have 20,000 WORDS by Louis A. Leslie, a word list of commonly misspelled words. Side-by-side with my dictionary, this little jewel gets me through my writing day.

I love one other dictionary: The King’s English Dictionary. My British antiques business partner gave me a copy when his British accent and my Texas drawl tended to muddle discussions. Further complicating our chats about what to purchase for the shop, the English and American definitions frequently didn’t match. The King’s English Dictionary saved us many times over.

While you may never love dictionaries as I do, I still recommend you have a gigantic paper dictionary handy. You never know what you might learn.

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