Proper English? I Don’t Think So

Noah Webster wrote a dictionary published in 1826 incorporating the words Americans used. Notice I wrote “Americans” not “English speaking people.” During the Revolutionary War, he felt strongly that the geographical area of what soon became the United Sates of America make a total break from England. No more aristocratic rule, no taxation without representation, no ruling from afar, no more class system and no more aristocratically separating speech. In working toward this goal, Webster expounded every chance he had that there should be a new country with its own rules and its own language. 

Webster went about changing British language to American language. He heard new words being used like moccasin, skunk, tipi and raccoon. He saw that many words in British English did not make sense so why spell them that way? Gaol was pronounced ja-il so why not spell it similarly? We say theater but it was spelled theatre, center but spelled it centre and judgment not judgement. Besides wanting to change language to be more logical, he wanted to unify a group of states that spoke different dialects and native languages brought from Europe that made it hard to understand one another. Standardization of language and writing brought unification that was needed to build a united country after the Revolutionary War.

What happened to our language in 239 years? English speakers today are governed by Strunk and White and other rulers of grammar and punctuation. They and grammarian gurus dictated what
proper English was well into the 20^th century. All other uses of the language are wrong, wrong, wrong I say to you! But, the Internet has changed what English is and how it is used. Yes, we have to have some cohesive standards so we can understand other English speakers and writers but why do we say we cannot end a sentence with a proposition or split an infinitive? The (ironic) definition of a preposition is "A word you mustn't end a sentence with". Winston Churchill once used a preposition at the end of a sentence and was called to task for it. “Do you know who you are dealing with?” As the story goes, Churchill replied, "That's the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put."

Why are we so worried about the correctness of our writing and speaking when so many rules no longer make sense? It now sounds awkward to say “Firstly, I want to…” versus “First I want to…, second ….” Either way is correct in today’s American language but to grammaticians “Firstly” is formal usage.  Creeping into common use is “they” as a single pronoun. “Somebody left their umbrella on the table.” To some “She will blame you and I” sounds correct so why not use it? 

A rule written in the 1800’s states writers are supposed to learn not to split infinitives. Infinitives are “to” followed by a verb. “To diligently follow “ or “To graphically illustrate his point” are examples of split infinitives. “To boldly go where no man has gone before” sounds perfectly normal. “She urged me to casually walk up and to quietly introduce myself ” sounds normal. It sets in the reader’s mind the picture more quickly than “She urged me to walk up casually and introduce myself quietly.” The newest Merriam-Webster dictionary, a many times updated version of Noah Webster’s first dictionary, lists hundreds of words and phrases that do not meet the stuffy rules of a former era of grammar but instead reflect how Americans speak, write and spell today.

If it is general use, then that is what the preferred language is. Pedantic rules insistently enforced are becoming old fashioned. In society today, people want quick, fast, immediate. The emphasis is on being understood rather than being grammatically correct. Of course, in some writing such as formal, literary, scientific papers and for your dissertation, following the rules is wise. In a lot of other venues, to go boldly where no man has gone sounds good and it is accepted by your reader.

The Confusion Over Quotations Marks and Periods~Blame It on Noah Webster

Do you every wonder why we spell it color not colour, favor not favour, judgment not judgement, odor not odour, apologize not apologise? Do you wonder why Americans put the quotation marks outside the periods not inside like seems logical to me? Want to know why we use double quotation marks [“ ”] when the British use singles [‘ ’]? It is all due to lexicographer Noah Webster (1758-1843).

Webster had two reasons for changing British English into American English: his poor education and belief that America should be different from England. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut and was educated at public schools. He called his teachers in elementary school the “dregs of humanity” (in Britain they would use single quotation marks here) and the learning conditions deplorable. After graduating from Yale University, he taught school for a while and found he could not make a living at it; he also thought the teaching materials were horrible. He studied law under Oliver Ellsworth, later the Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court. Opening a law office in the midst of the Revolutionary War, Webster soon realized he could not make a living at practicing law either. Much to our advantage and confusion, he became a lexicographer (from Greek meaning "words" and "to write" i.e., a writer of dictionaries). 

As a young adult during the Revolutionary War, Webster became a strong advocate of the more liberal Federalists instead of the conservative Republicans. He felt that America should shrug off the trappings of the English aristocracy for a society that was for everyman. He felt the new nation had to drop the cultural and speech habits of England for a more relaxed approach to life. He wrote hundreds of essays and newspaper articles advocating the American life.

Paramount to the success of this endeavor (not endeavour), he set about changing grammar, punctuation and spelling. Webster was triumphant in most of his promotions. He is responsible for Americans spelling words without the “u” e.g.,* color and favor and using “-ize” instead of “-ise.” The latter went along with his attempt to change words to reflect their more phonetic sounds. Some examples of words that failed to catch on are: yung, reeding, masheen and tung but theater and plow did. He thought it made more sense to use double quotation marks to indicate written conversation leaving single quotation marks for other uses. He decided periods should logically (really?) be put inside double quotation marks. Type setters of old quickly adapted Webster's use of periods inside double quotation marks because it kept the tiny "." from falling over which is why my spell and grammar checker must be British. It tries to correct me when I put them inside. It irritates me because I agree with the British that periods belong on the outside. For no obvious explicable reason, sources say that British writers and publishers are slowly converting to our use of quotation marks. I say, “Harrumph”. 

In order to earn a living, Webster started a school for children of wealthy New Yorkers. This seems dichotomous to his principles but a fellow does what a fellow has to do. Because his education was so poor and unable to find acceptable teaching materials and books for children, he expounded the American spirit of entrepreneurship and wrote his own. For over 100 years, Webster's books on grammar, reading and spelling were used successfully to teach American children. Commonly called The Blue-back Speller, it sold 77 million copies. Every American child had access to these learning tools, not just the aristocratic families. From the profits of the sale of these books, a half-cent royalty per copy, Webster was able to dedicate eighteen years of his life to writing the first dictionary of American words, An Compendious Dictionary of the English Language published in 1806. Incidentally, trying to protect his work from plagiarism led to the first copyright laws in the United States in 1790. Reports vary on the number of words in the book but do agree that thousands of them had never been published before including skunk, squash and moccasin. 

An American Dictionary of the English Language and thereafter popularly known as Webster's Unabridged, was published in 1828 by Merriam Publishers later to become Merriam-Webster as it is known today. Webster and Mirriam Publishing produced a second edition. He died on May 28,1843 days after compiling another revision. He is buried in Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven Connecticut. He was 84 years old. You may visit Webster's house, now a fine museum, 227 Main St., Hartford, CT. An excellent resource for further study of Noah Webster's profound impact on shaping American and American English, is The Forgotten Founding Father Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture, by Joshua Kendall, G.P Putnam's Sons, 2001.

So, are hats off to Noah Webster? Understanding the political fervor (not fevour) at the time, I can understand his reasoning on the spelling but continue to have doubts about those quotation marks. What do you think?

*British English does not use a comma after e.g.
Please note: the many resources I consulted had conflicting titles of his books and dates of publication.