Latest news with #NoahWebster
Wall Street Journal
13-04-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
‘Enough Is Enuf' Review: A Dream of Simpler Spelling
Long before Noah Webster completed his 1828 magnum opus, 'An American Dictionary of the English Language,' he published a wildly successful primer called 'A Grammatical Institute of the English Language'—widely known as the 'Blue-Backed Speller'—which sold close to 25 million copies in his lifetime. The spelling primer's first edition conformed to traditional English orthography, with, for instance, entries for 'theatre,' 'publick' and 'colour.' After the publication of the 'Blue-Backed Speller' in 1783, however, Webster became increasingly committed to an American dialect that would be distinct from British English. His dictionary had an explicitly patriotic agenda: to unite the language of the regionally diverse United States and to declare its independence from the former motherland. In addition to such Americanisms as 'moccasin' and 'cookies,' Webster featured updated spellings of a number of words, including 'theater,' 'public' and 'color.' As Gabe Henry notes in 'Enough Is Enuf,' a history of the largely futile efforts to overhaul English spelling, Webster wasn't motivated by nationalism alone. He had also become an adherent of wholesale changes to written English, lamenting its 'irregular' orthography. 'If a gradual reform should not be made in our language,' the lexicographer warned in 1790, 'it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.' A quick glance at that sentence is sufficient to grasp that not all of Webster's hoped-for modifications caught on. Mr. Henry begins his smart, lighthearted chronicle of the simplified spelling movement by identifying the 'heart of our problem': that 'English has 44 sounds but only 26 letters' and that each sound has, 'on average, four ways of spelling it.' (He offers 'cat,' 'kid,' 'chrome' and 'queen' as examples of the latter.) Over the centuries, reformers have proposed solutions—including adding new letters to the alphabet, removing existing letters from the alphabet and inventing different alphabets altogether—to little avail.
USA Today
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Puzzle solutions for Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025
USA TODAY Note: Most subscribers have some, but not all, of the puzzles that correspond to the following set of solutions for their local newspaper. CROSSWORDS USA TODAY crossword Play the USA TODAY Crossword Puzzle. Los Angeles Times crossword Today's crossword (McMeel) Daily Commuter crossword SUDOKU Play the USA TODAY Sudoku Game. JUMBLE Jumbles: MINCE BLIND ENZYME FOUGHT Answer: For Noah Webster, publishing the first edition of his dictionary was a − DEFINING MOMENT (Distributed by Tribune Content Agency) CRYPTOGRAPHY PUZZLES Celebrity Cipher "I think the sensation of being moved by a piece of art is something that is really good for a person's soul." − Ben Whishaw (Distributed by Andrews McMeel) Cryptoquote WHEN IT'S RAINING PUDDING, HOLD UP YOUR BOWL. − SANDRA DALLAS (Distributed by King Features) Cryptoquip I LIKE TO THINK OF PROFESSIONAL ARBITRATORS AS PEOPLE WHO ARE WORKING IN MEDDLE MANAGEMENT. (Distributed by King Features) OTHER PUZZLES Boggle SEAL WHALE WALRUS DOLPHIN PORPOISE (Distributed by Tribune Content Agency) Lexigo EXPEL, LEVELS, SPELL, LAPSED, DEPLOY (Distributed by Andrews McMeel) KenKen Scrabblegrams 7 Little Words PHYSICIANS MORTGAGE HOSTED COCO TANGANYIKA WYETH SWAMP (Distributed by Andrews McMeel) Find the Words Unspoilt towns and beaches (Distributed by Creators Syndicate) Kubok
