Founding Grammars (19 page)

In the end Webster did not have much to show for his ten years of work. He had hoped to include the
Synopsis
as the dictionary's third volume, but had to abandon the idea. Printing it would have entailed extensive use of non-Western typefaces, making the cost prohibitive. He then tried collecting enough subscriptions to bring out the volume as a separate book, but didn't find any takers. He eventually settled for incorporating some of the material into the dictionary entries, along with writing an essay on language origins for the dictionary's preface.

Webster's work on his dictionary project was also slow because he took time out for political activities. Although he no longer edited a Federalist newspaper, he remained politically engaged. In 1814 he lent his support and writing skills to the Hartford Convention, a gathering of Federalists opposed to “Mr. Madison's War” of 1812 against the English. He also served in the Connecticut and Massachusetts legislatures and ran unsuccessfully more than once for the House of Representatives.

He was involved in his local community as well. He served as a justice of the peace, and helped found Amherst Academy, a private school that later became Amherst College. He also started work on a revision of the King James Bible. Concerned with grammar as always, he tidied up its archaic usages. He also replaced obsolete words and substituted euphemisms for potentially offensive words and phrases. (For instance, he avoided
womb
by using indirect phrases like
made fruitful
or
made barren.
) Webster's Bible, sometimes known as the Common Version, would be published in 1833.

In 1817, as he was wrapping up the
Synopsis,
Webster at last achieved the financial security that had eluded him during most of his life. After many years of selling the rights to his speller piecemeal—and seeing printers reap the largest share of the profits—he sold the exclusive right to publish the
American Spelling Book
to the Hartford firm of Hudson & Co. In exchange, he was to receive $3,000 a year for fourteen years (the life of the copyright), beginning in 1818. Short of cash as usual, Webster later renegotiated this agreement. In 1817 he received an advance of $3,000 and the next year a $20,000 lump sum payment. Although it was only about half of what he would have made under the original contract, $23,000 was enough to relieve him of money worries. He returned to his work on the dictionary with renewed zest.

As Webster neared the end of his labors, he decided that to be thorough, he needed to consult certain books only available in Europe. After resettling Rebecca in New Haven, where she could be near her two married daughters, he set out for Paris in the summer of 1824, bringing along his twenty-two-year-old son William. Webster stayed in Paris for several weeks, but the French material proved disappointing. He and William moved on to England.

By the end of September, Webster was writing Rebecca to say that they were in Cambridge, “settled very snugly at lodgings for the winter.” Besides a bedroom each, they rented a parlor. A room of about fifteen feet square, it was comfortably furnished with two tables, a sofa, and a few chairs. In this room, seated at one of the tables, Webster progressed steadily through the last pages of his great work, although he wrote to his wife that his right thumb was “almost exhausted.” Early in the new year, he finished writing the entry for
zygomatic
and laid down his pen. Later, he wrote a memorandum recalling the moment: “I finished writing my Dictionary in January 1825.… When I had come to the last word, I was seized with a trembling which made it somewhat difficult to hold my pen steady for writing.… I summoned the strength to finish the last word, and then walking about the room a few minutes, I recovered.”
36

When Noah Webster finished
An American Dictionary of the English Language
he was sixty-six years old. He had been writing about American English for the past forty-two years. All the issues he cared about were packed into his dictionary's two hefty volumes—linguistic patriotism, etymology, natural grammar rules, simplified spelling. Even his religious beliefs were incorporated. He based his language origins essay on the biblical book of Genesis. He also omitted what he termed “vulgar and obscene words,” even those included in most dictionaries of the time.
37
(
Fart
is one example.)

The dictionary was Webster's final attempt to convince Americans to stake a claim in their own speech. He hoped they would use his book to take their language in a more informed direction. Over the years, as Webster had observed popular democracy in action, his political views had grown more conservative. He was friendlier toward the mother country and much less impressed with his fellow citizens. He strongly disapproved of Andrew Jackson, who would be their choice for president three years later. In spite of his new political outlook, he remained committed to American speech. As he explains in the dictionary's preface, “It is not only important, but in a degree necessary, that the people of this country should have
an American Dictionary of the English Language;
for although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist.”
38

Among Webster's purposes in traveling to England had been the hope of discovering how much the two languages agreed on matters of pronunciation and grammar. Yet he realized that cultural and physical differences between the two countries—in forms of government, customs, terrain, plants, and animals—called for a specifically American dictionary. “No person in this country will be satisfied with the English definitions of
congress, senate,
and
assembly,
” he says.

Some people were concerned that by including American word inventions, Webster was allowing coarse, low-class language into the dictionary. He didn't see it that way. As he wrote to his brother-in-law while in the planning stages, “Americanisms must be admitted, for they form an essential part of our language.” Anyway, he thinks they're entirely legitimate. “What is the difference, in point of authenticity, between respectable American usage and respectable English usage?” he demands staunchly.
39

Webster's
American Dictionary
was a monumental achievement. It listed seventy thousand words, including twelve thousand not recorded elsewhere. Webster had also added between thirty thousand and forty thousand new definitions.
40
He mined the American language for “words of common use.” These included new verbs—
revolutionize, electioneer
—and new items—
parachute, safety-valve.
He added or updated dozens of scientific and legal words. He also added religious definitions to words not normally in that category. Among the definitions of
life,
for instance, is “eternal happiness in heaven.”

Once again, however, Webster discovered that imposing scholarship was not enough to make a book desirable to publishers—or to the public. After trying unsuccessfully to find a London publisher, Webster returned home to New Haven to search for one there. After several months, Sherman Converse, editor of the New Haven
Connecticut Journal,
agreed to handle the publishing and printing. Then began the long, fraught process of proofreading and revision. Webster himself carried out this task to a large extent, although he hired other readers for some of the material. Not until November of 1828 was the book—in two enormous volumes—at long last printed. Webster had just turned seventy. The first edition consisted of 2,500 copies, priced at $20. Soon afterward, Webster found a London publisher who printed 3,000 copies for the English market, after removing the word
American
from the title.

The book's early reception was promising. The
Western Recorder,
announcing the book shortly after it appeared, does not offer a review but says, “This work is spoken of in the highest terms.” Most reviewers agreed that the number of new words was impressive. “The vocabulary is enlarged by the addition of many thousand words … not found in other dictionaries,” says one, and furthermore, these are words “for the precise meaning of which the general reader is most frequently at a loss.” Yet another reviewer remarks, “Dr. Webster, besides adding very largely to the number of definitions, has given to them, in great degree, the precision of modern science.”
41

The
North American Review
devotes forty-eight pages to a well-informed examination of the dictionary. The reviewer uses more than half of those pages to describe Webster's etymological discoveries, taking issue with some of his conclusions, but generally approving his methods. He praises Webster's new definitions as covering “the most common and important senses of words, according to the best usage of the present day.” The new scientific and technical words also add to the dictionary's value. He even approves of the inserted
Philosophical and Practical Grammar,
believing that it contains “many improvements on those which preceded it.”

The reviewer ends by predicting that “the author's labors, in the cause of language of his country” will soon produce a good effect on how Americans use their native tongue. “It will be seen in the better understanding of authors,” he says, and “in the more correct use of words.” The dictionary will also, he hopes, add to the respect “with which the author will be viewed, for his talents, learning, and persevering industry.”
42
These predictions went largely unfulfilled.

Many prominent men did admire the book. Webster wrote to his son-in-law William Fowler in 1829, “My great book seems to command a good deal of attention. Mr. Quincy, now president of Harvard … assures me the book will be well reviewed.… It is considered as a national work.”
43

Others were unwilling to accept its quirks. Webster's innovative spellings were the biggest stumbling block. Most people agreed with his dropping the
u
from words like
honour
and
colour,
and the
k
from words like
publick
and
musick.
These practices were already widespread. They were less happy with oddities like
bridegoom
for
bridegroom
and
ieland
for
island.

Webster's most persistent critic was a rival spelling-book author named Lyman Cobb. Cobb wrote several articles challenging Webster's spellings, eventually bundling his criticisms into a fifty-six-page pamphlet called
A Critical Review of the Orthography of Dr. Webster's Series of Books for Systematick Instruction in the English Language.
Cobb's use of a final
k
to spell
Systematick
makes his attitude plain.

Cobb's main complaint is that Webster's claim to have made English spelling more uniform is false. He examines the spellers and dictionaries minutely, one at a time, to uncover Webster's inconsistencies. Webster has dropped the
k
from
garlick
and
physick,
but not from
lock
and
attack.
He omits the
u
from
labour
and
vigour,
but keeps them in
curious
and
generous.
Cobb argues that Webster has not followed his own rules, and that those rules are misguided anyway. The pamphlet ends with a several-page table that compares selected words across Webster's books and shows how the spellings have changed from one place to the other.

Cobb attacked Webster personally as well as intellectually. In the introduction, he derides the notion that Webster's dictionary provides Americans with a new standard—if such a thing is even necessary. He suggests that the only reason any of Webster's books sell at all is because he and his publishers relentlessly market them. As for the new dictionary, it has gained undeserved recognition because “the most unwearied pains have been taken by Mr. Webster and his friends to puff it in newspapers and periodicals.” Also, “by personally applying to Members of Congress and others, he has been able to procure the recommendations of many men.”
44

Cobb had a personal motive for his aggrieved tone. Webster and his publishers had responded to his previous attacks by publicly pointing out that Cobb was himself a textbook writer with a vested interest in seeing Webster's books fail. Cobb was not alone, however, in concluding that Webster's spelling reforms left something to be desired. Many people with no axe to grind nonetheless felt that Webster's ideas were too radical. Another problem for the dictionary was its price. At $20—about $500 in modern purchasing power—it was just too expensive for most households. Nearly a decade would pass before the last of the 2,500 American copies sold. Once again, Webster's hard work had not paid off as he hoped. He decided that he needed to bring out a cheaper, more compact edition.

In 1829 Webster consulted his publisher, Sherman Converse, about producing an abridged edition of the
American Dictionary.
After two decades of unremitting hard work on the dictionary, Webster felt unequal to editing it himself. Converse hired a Yale graduate named Joseph Worcester to undertake the task. Worcester had recently edited an American version of Samuel Johnson's pioneering 1755 dictionary. Also, unbeknownst to Webster, he was compiling a dictionary of his own that would compete with Webster's when it appeared a year later.

To supervise Worcester's work, Webster enlisted his son-in-law Chauncey Goodrich. Goodrich, married to Webster's daughter Julia, was a professor of rhetoric at Yale. He was also an astute businessman. Goodrich realized that the dictionary's unconventional spellings, convoluted etymologies, and other idiosyncratic features made it less appealing to the general public than it could have been. A more standardized volume would be bound to sell much better.