5 November 2012 NOAH WEBSTER & HIS WORDS by Jeri Chase Ferris and Vincent X. Kirsch, ill., Houghton Mifflin, October 2012, 32p., ISBN: 978-0-547-39055-0

I’d like to have a word with you about Noah Webster.

“There are so many different words they do all kinds of things
Some can make us laugh and smile while others hurt and sting
We get to choose the words we use each and every day
So when it's time to use a word be careful what you say”

-- Red and Kathy Grammer, “Use a Word”

“Why ban a word when you can ban the whole dictionary? That's the attitude of one southern California school district, which pulled Merriam-Webster's ‘Collegiate Dictionary’ from school shelves after a parent complained that its definition of ‘oral sex’ was too explicit…

“According to school spokesperson Betti Cadmus, who shares her patronym with the mythical Phoenician credited with bringing writing to the Greeks, the dictionary has been pulled from all Menifee schools (so if you want to know more about Cadmus, or what patronym means, try the public library, because the school library won't be allowed to tell you).

“Cadmus, who suspects that Webster's may have a lot worse things in it than oral sex, told the local newspaper, ‘It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature.’

“Most people don't find reading a dictionary cover to cover all that stimulating, and some parents aren't supporting the school's word witch-hunt. After all, dictionaries are the place where children often go to find out what dirty words mean, because even parents who teach their children the anatomically-correct terms for their private parts balk at explaining taboo terms like f—k and c—t [Sorry, I’m trying to get this through your district’s filtering software.] (Webster's exemplary definitions of these words, which are clearly labeled as negative, are written in simple language that even a fifth-grader can understand), plus parents may not have taken enough Latin in school to accurately explain the derivations of words like cunnilingus or fellatio (also in Webster's) to their offspring. And Riverside County continues to use Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary for its annual spelling bee, which will put Menifee students at a competitive disadvantage (Menifee's district spelling bee is set for Thursday, Jan. 28).”

-- Dennis Baron (2010), “Webster’s banned for too much sex”

My word!  I cracked up about the parent (quoted in a different article) whose reaction to the controversy was that, “Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school will be the Bert and Ernie Dictionary!”

And, yes, the Menifee School District did, in due course, return those dictionaries to the schools.

Could Noah Webster imagine that his dictionary would still be around centuries later, or that the fruit of his lengthy research and writing project would ELIC-IT [transitive verb: to draw forth or bring out] such reactions?  I mean, this guy was driven to spent the better part of two decades compiling this thing (spanning the Presidential years of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe), and it is, of course, the reason we care anything about Noah Webster in 2012.  (At least those of us who don’t believe that spell check is the end-all.)

“He started his dictionary in 1807, and seventeen years later he was still writing.  He needed more books.  He needed the great libraries in Paris and London and Cambridge.  In 1824 he took his notes and his son William and sailed for Europe.

“A year later with a shaky hand, Noah wrote the meaning of the last word in his dictionary: ZY-GO-MAT-IC [adj.: related to the cheekbone].  How did it feel to be finished at last?  ‘[It was] difficult to hold my pen steady,’ he said, ‘[but after] walking about the room for a few minutes, I recovered.’”

It is pretty fun how author Jeri Chase Ferris repeatedly slips in the Webster definitions of words she is employing in telling the story of Noah Webster.  We learn in NOAH WEBSTER & HIS WORDS that young Noah used his words to tell his father that he had no desire to be the next farmer in a long line of Webster farmers.  (Unfortunately, we don’t learn here what his dad might have later thought about Noah putzing around for eighteen years on a dictionary project.)  We learn that Noah went to Yale, became a teacher, a journalist, an author, and an advocate for a strong federal government.  He was a popular and persuasive guy who was on the A list for dinners with Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and lots of other Founding Father types. 

I really like the Vincent X. Kirsch illustrations here.  The characters have a Quentin Blake sort of cartoonishness that I enjoy a lot.  I particularly got a kick out of one illustration where a bunch of bewigged guys are all grinning as they crowd around a copy of the reading book Webster got published in 1785.  (They look as if they’ve just found one or two of those words that Betti Cadmus is on the lookout for.)

Richie Partington, MLIS
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