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Word for the Wise July 04, 2006 Broadcast Topic: An American dictionary

Happy Birthday, America! This fourth of July we're celebrating the independence of our American language by marking this year's bicentennial anniversary of Noah Webster's A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. (来源:EnglishCN.com)

Noah Webster published that first true American dictionary in 1806. He envisioned his dictionary as a tool of unity and patriotism for his young country, and he predicted, in his lengthy preface, that the English language would someday be spoken the world over.

Among the 37,000 entries Webster included in his 408-page Compendious reference (which Webster defined as "brief; concise; a summary") are such Native American borrowings as skunk and succotash. He also included a number of terms born in the New World (think selectman and Americanize). And it was in this 1806 publication that Webster made his big push to Americanize (or reform) British spelling.

Later lexicographers admire Noah Webster as a master of the nearly perfect first draft and as a born definer. He is credited with giving English speakers the original definitions of these words that seem to us quintessentially American: immigrant; debit, sectarian, constitutionality, presidential, and publicity.

We're interested in hearing which words you consider oh-so-American.

 
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