John Morse Dictionary and Democracy

from alderson auditorium in the kansas union k pr presents an hour with john morse and j mcintyre john morse is president and publisher of merriam webster moore spoke as part of merriam webster's dictionary and democracy to or marking the two hundredth anniversary of america's first dictionary and dictionary as she'd in many spelling reforms like dropping the u from the british spelling of labor and color and dropping make hay from the words music and public it also documented a number of particularly american words like hickory and presidential his remarks were faith faith faith thank you very much this isn't even an interesting anniversary this year ahmed is the two hundredth anniversary of noah webster's very first dictionary man landed this isn't offered those was a very much a nice opportunity to go out and talk about dictionaries and introduced

people are really just really interesting matters that night i think i'm thinking a little bit more about pictures of it in ways that that you haven't thought about pictures before someone like to do tonight is introduce you to a book to a person into an idea and the book i'd like to introduce you to is a remarkable little dictionary it's noah webster's very first dictionary written in at no sex i was called a compounding is dictionary author of the english language it's a both a curiously has never really gotten i think the attention that a properly deserves it ends up often get overshadowed by some of the bigger dictionaries became both before it after it was particularly samuel johnson's great dictionary of seventeen fifty five by then later noah webster's own dictionary armed of the later a larger american dictionary of the endless line was it came out

in eighteen twenty eight but is overshadowed as as i think the committee's guess i think it is an important dictionary off before the fight is one of the very first dictionaries to be written in this country and certainly it is the first important dictionary to be written in this country and really as a danger that marks the beginning of syria's lexicographer a lot in this country and then the person i want to introduce you to is as noah webster himself by noah webster is funny names familiar to many of you what i'd like to introduce you to an aspect of know that i think is often overlooked and that's the aspect of neil webster who is what the founding fathers of this country because although he was one of the youngest of that generation i think it really is probably seen as as part of the generation of our founding fathers he is one of the very important political thinkers of that period he's one of the major

contributors of central concepts are going to love the us constitution and the idea that i would like to introduce you to is to think about the dictionary not just as a collection of the words and definitions but really is important social document think of the dictionary as as a document this designed to address social problems by to pursue democratic goals i think it's a texture to claim him in america as a doctor that really is born in a moment of great crisis and that's a really intended to speak to that crisis and what i think in many ways still speak to some of the issues that that we wrestle with today however if we're doing that i want to go off on a tangent and answer one of the most frequently asked questions about dictionaries which is how does the word get in the dictionary and it's a reason why i think it's good for just over this tension right

now the first is i suspect action on many of your minds and maybe is even a why you came here tonight the city to find out how is it worse condition iran certainly don't want disappointing ones anticipation on that but the second reason is i think that's a real proper understand the answer to that question is going to help you understand most of someone finally saying tonight so how does work it in the dictionary it's kind of it's a three step process i'm step one begins when the work is being point and then begins being used by them or more people and that's a process it's going on our language all the time english speakers love to invent and reinvent their language and i think that english speakers in particular are very aware of the fact that language is not just inherited that is constructed and i think all of us like to be part of that construction process of creating our line which

we do so because ob aren't new technologies coming into our lives are no institutions are new conditions in every system can lead to innovation sometimes i think it's just argue urge for inventiveness sometimes i actually think it's just part of our own verse for it for playfulness one way or the other that's a process that's going on all time the second step comes when we as lexicographers begin to know that this intervention is this particular coinage this has happened we don't do that through a process we call them western media market we've marking is a program that merriment chicken dance with all the senators in which every editor of merriam websters spends a portion of every working day simply reading reading books magazines newspapers catalogues corporate annual reports organizational newsletters menus cookbooks whatever we can get our hands on that give us a sense of what are the words being

used in our language what we're looking for when we do that are examples of do words someone had to be the first person to see words from say from technology like blogs or maybe health and medicine like matthew degeneration we're looking for those kinds of new words coming into the salon which also coming into greater use and dissemination throughout life which were looking for old words being used in new ways once upon a time a mouse was just a furry little creature nasa divisive drives a computer were also looking for just very typical uses of words we're looking for uses of words used in a context that reveals the meaning well because of those citations that were on a lot on later when we write definitions of words and the job of that the finally get around to doing a revision and i get around to doing new defining is to infer the meanings of words

from the context in which they occur so one of the things that we're doing really marking doing is trying to find good examples of words being used in a very meaningful context and those examples of the fighter told citations and we have a file of citations that merriam webster really goes back over a hundred years of collecting these these examples of words using condoms these citations we have over sixteen million of these citations and little file drawers are more rabid office of merriam webster i think it is the largest collection of little three by five sets of paper that exist probably anyplace in the world dominance of merriam webster that's what we rely on wind getting step three and steps three comes when we decide whether a word will go in the dictionary or not this happens at the point which we are revising dictionary crabs are writing a new dictionary and what we do or was your dictionary is we re read every single definition in the dictionary and we

compare every definition of a shy with all the new citations that we have collected since the last edition came out and we ask ourselves what do our definition of what all of it these citations that that we have collected and if we look at those citations of what they tell says there is a word it established itself as like a lie which is showing up in multiple publications of and publications of the kind that get educated americans are dark have as their daily reading fair and has done so for a number of years but it started out where to go in the dictionary that you're following the logic of what i'm saying what you realize is that in a way if we asked the question who decides what words go in the dictionary the answer is the american people decide what word goes dictionary they decide through the actions and decisions they make about how they use

language and one ways lexicographers do is simply reflect back those kinds of decisions we report back to the body of english speakers the collective decisions that they have made about the language and that's why i think the highlight is an invite you to think about the dictionary as being the quintessential democratic document because it is in fact reflecting back the decisions of all the group of people it's really a reflection of the actions of the decisions and the wishes of an artist that the american people the real soul of the speaking people in general and i saw that the dictionary that is based on a very fundamental belief in that fundamental belief is in the legitimacy of the language that is created by the people i am and i think the person who have the most happy to hear that this is the way we do our work one factory noah webster

because i think he would recognize that in this activity where working squarely within a tradition in fact he articulated and he inaugurated when he published his ideas dictionary in at no sex that's really the story of that tradition and how it's been passed down in the vault that i'd like to share with you tonight so let's talk a lot more about that then with the compound tears but first i'd i would have admitted that our story really begins a few years earlier and seventeen eighty three with the publication of webster's american spelling book out some of you may know is as the blue backed speller this was a remarkably successful book it sold their endowments he hears in the nineteenth century about a million copies per year probably is that every schoolchild in america during most of the nineteenth century had access to webster's black speller it really was one of support in terms of making

know what's his reputation has really where he introduced some of his most radical notions about spelling reform and not really talking a lot about spilling four by doing a little later do not allude back to this was mubarak's power and it's important and i stand just how successful their book was hemingway how radical it wasn't his view above the need is no sought to fundamentally reform the language and to move in ways really apart from from our standard british english but for tonight's results that so jump ahead to wait you know six and military a little bit more about the content is itself it is i think that already looted reverse wall dictionary which is consistent with its title a compendium is dictionary and it's always both concise and comprehensive very often people use content is today i think that but the us is mostly on comprehensive but still continues as was properly understood

as being both concise and comprehensive and that really goes the book was up about this artist album plus i have any stars staring at libraries in your business is not the content is to show itself this is a facsimile of another book that came out just about the same time as the company has not just to give you an idea just how small audition room we're really talking about it has about four hundred pages in it it has about forty thousand words which is about the same number of words that you might find in a paperback a small paper right to church day and it has tiny tiny tight end at the type of the company's is so small that i suspect most illness within his room i don't quite understand how people and in that day and age with some of the poor quality of indoor lighting and i don't really know how how they were

able to read it but i read it they did perhaps because of its small size it really is never been taken particularly seriously but i think there are really there are three aspects of this little dictionary that are really quite extraordinary and don't really want warren c attention really give it this year the first aspect of the thing is really quite extraordinary is the word list itself that that is in the dictionary it out like all dictionaries that companies use in fact based on an earlier work lexicographer almost never start their job with a blank sheet of paper we're almost always building on something that went before an hour so it wasn't a case of the competitors and no bases a lot of his word list on a book called the new spelling dictionary was created by john and take an england and all really felt invisible of the spelling dictionaries that were out there

was the best and that's what he bases his teacher around but few antics list though webster says on his title pages he's at five thousand new words that have been in the dictionary before there was interesting is two hundred years later i don't think any scholar it's never set about the task of identifying what are the five thousand new words that no point in the dictionary every time i come as for this talk i did a little static their son and i have on campus every twentieth page of the compound tears and compare it was saying how for a range of four than most current printing of johnson's dictionary which in one of the seventy nine d printing's of johnson's dictionary and compared the complaint is johnson's difference in what is what is no walk out that that samuel johnson did not have and the list that is beginning to emerge really are quite fascinating to kill a glimpse into where noah was really doing is he's a rich lexicographer

somebody the words covers a very predictable the sources that you might guess i'm for instance on we have a brand new government and in this country at this point our constitution has just been ratified and with that comes a lot of new vocabulary that we had in our lives before sonos dictionaries the first picture include the worst presidential our constitution ali and a mandatory and also it would critically and others cause of plans before english speakers are on a new continent and encountering new plants and animals they've never seen before us and those dictionaries the first to include skunk and hectoring an apostle not so well known is no is the first dictionary maker to include words and science and technology and its dictionary look at samuel johnson's dictionary for the most part is the language of philosophy saliva literature language of religion was almost no

art science and technology johnson's dictionary know fellows very important particularly ought to be the kind of educational goals is set for this to charity that include those words so this is the first addition to include the words nutrient vaccinate and galvanize some terry another thing another as having those two had for the first time he cleared settlers from daily life and this was an era and i think the senate just large parts of glossed over so those dishes the first to include the words shore checkers and snowshoe on one of these things that come out of my canvassing is i have also compare the words i find hear waves well listen to those words in there in the great oxford english dictionary the twenty boy and historical dictionary of the english language then records the earliest known use of words what i've thousand least three dozen times there

is a use in the compound his dictionary that the oxford researchers didn't know about them in fact their earliest date for about three dozen words on that i found so far is later than the kurds in the eighty six on diction porras we can we can indeed a doe dee careful examination of you know logistics and then there's some were pretty common words an altimeter caloric hydrant an inexact are all dated and in the only day and i would have to live also i'm a major collegiate dictionary to eighteen twenty eight which is to say historians and researchers know that they don't want to put him in the eighteen twenty eight but never was about and what ahmed and his earlier support dictionary to say when you actually at first and let them in a dictionary just elope example i'll have another is needed how the fame of some of these large editions as has eclipsed the compound tears the second guy

remarkable aspect from a lot of this book is the preface than say this is a very small book a four hundred pages but the first twenty pages or preference and that's that's a lot of profits for a little dictionary i'm an overview of years have commented on that and wouldn't want know having created is very compare these stationary the end of those twenty eight pages to a preface and i think the answer is a bill webster was to somehow lot to say and then he was never known for for being brief long instead and i think that's reflected the preface but i also think that something else that's important here which is that i think that you know it was all harrison is creating this little dictionary that he was doing something more than just making little dictionary i think he was aware that he was in fact founding the less of a graphical tradition in this country and i think again easy is

all the generation in this country offer who the notion of being a founder i was very very important to a lot of the founders of this country haven't had a sense of wanting to achieve fifteen not fame in a fleeting sense of fame but the famous of a profound and enduring fame and the most important kind of enduring fame and there was a baker was to be a founder something i think noah was aware here at know sex that he was in fact founding of our lives are very end and there was an event that really deserves some some explanation so he talks about what he's doing what it is that sense this dictionary apart from from dishes that have come before and so that are the days of our invention the american assault that he's gonna cover really beyond the american language coverage decisive technology which he thinks is so important he also rescues on spelling and etymology and pronunciation and talk about all of those in

the preface but what i really find most important and interesting as when he talks about his views of talc dictionary making itself because he has some surprisingly modern views about lexicographer yet about language he believes for instance it says in the preface the changing variation or natural to a language this is a quote he says every man a common really knows the living line which was suffered gradual changes and suffering in the eighteenth century nineteenth century when these as hundred dollars that honestly painful civilians to undergo a living language whatsoever gradual changes in his kind words the sake of occasions of bangers and in pronunciation and he says i am convinced that a living language and myths of no fixed state nor any certain standard by which even alert in general content to be

covered a living language and bits of no fixed state nor any certain standard those are fighting words to these data to this day in a new desert of that you get in a bar fight tonight saying that have to certain people and he also goes on to say that the only valid arbiter of correctness is the usage of educated people and he says the lexicographers air very much when they put artificial rules in opposition to any kind of a popular practice i'm not get your quotation have to do with pronunciation but i think it says to his view about life in general he says for whatever product learning may suggest a strong general inclination or tendency to a particular pronunciation always proceeds from some interesting reasons a preference which all my may not be able to explain by which their senses recognize a satisfactory and conclusive now as people use language in a particular way even

if it's against the rules as a good reason for it and we ought to respect it and if you're following that what it really means is we have to have george bush off the hook with his position new york the third bomb interesting thing that that he says in the preface his is a bold prediction that american english would become the most spoken language in the world including chinese and if you think about you think about including mr talley of spoken the people who were speaking english as a foreign language or as a second language and you think about the fact that right now there are more people learning english in china then are speaking english to united states i think that that production has already come true and what was a bold thing to say and it no sex the compound is that i say why i'm drawn to this today the

biographical of the historical component of our story here's where i would talk a little more about noah the person known about the idea of the dictionary and which gets me to this is wondering law i the year eighteen hundred does know announce to the world at tate said i've been a hard for current and announces to the world that is going to write a dictionary what it what he make that step now to a certain degree it kind of them in retrospect appears come naturally army reduced our souls so why not the dictionary said a lot of other things that bill could have been doing with his life he was a widely accomplished person is second only to benjamin franklin in the breadth of interest see that he had been a teacher a lawyer politician a publisher a researcher a scholar and what he actually was was most accomplished in at this point was as a political advocate someone

writing and advocacy for various kinds of political causes in fact in the period from that seventeen eighty five up to eighteen hundred is one of the most important political figures on the american stage thrust most importantly and seventeen eighty five it was a long essay called sketches of american government and that goes on to become one of the most widely read the most influential political tracts indeed the months leading up to the constitutional convention it's been estimated that probably just about every delegate to the constitutional convention on had read noah webster sketches of american government it lays out so the most important concepts in fact i don't want to become part of the constitution now ballester himself was not a delegate to the constitutional convention but he was there in philadelphia while it was going on it's clear he was very

involved with some of the the maneuvering from the sidelines george washington right on the eve of their cars is routine as it comes and visits noah webster knows apartment george what is clearly the most powerful figure out of his day and then for a constitutional convention i know writes while most important pamphlets advocating it's its ratification in the years following that he's in the thick of just that every major political battle of the day but they're making hundred he gives a national politics he goes back to connecticut and he decides to write a dictionary so again i wonder why why why did that happen and i think for many years it was immune understand more about that period in our history of the late seventies hundreds and early at hundreds it was a very very scary time following the revolution was little unity that the thirteen colonies had managed

to have during the war itself quickly begins to fall apart and in its place we begin to see a very fierce kinds of regional rivalries and political rivalries an economic rivalry some of it really becoming quite violent i think i know in particular was very shaken by some to happen right i'm on merriam webster's doorstep in springfield massachusetts which was shays rebellion which was on from seventy six to seventeen at seven finally ends up on an armed confrontation between us troops that investors armory and then farmers in the area and they'd even more profound of the whiskey rebellion which takes place with seventeen seventy ninety four in pennsylvania law which required thirteen thousand troops have to buy them president washington to go and put down a rebellion an armed rebellion of of farmers in pennsylvania rebelling

against attacks no in his own speaking tours which you did good in those days and had seen the mobs in the street it unseemly all the angry voices there are being raised that point season politicking arm and i think he is as well as many others was really very worried about about what he had seen there was it goes a lot of anxiety about political events and social norms on in the country at that point so a large part i think because it was going on france at the same time french revolution is becoming very violent from seven to ninety three forwarded people worry will that come to this country but it's also because it has so much social change going on in the country at this point in terms of a more organization which turned with a promise of a poverty and crime and

then the biggies industrialization more integration cultural pluralism to integrate and certainly nasser demographic shifts gone on in the country it's all very scary iman i think this really weighs on on noah's mom and i think that is why he was such a champion of the new constitution because it was going to do more power to the central government is why you saw it with the federalist because he saw federal says be more resistant to some of the excesses of democracy that he saw lots of democrats republicans and it all comes to a head i think in the president's selection of of eighteen hundred which is when the most hotly contested and bitterly fought elections in our country's history really makes any current election look like childs play that with the kind of bitterness and anger so that came out in the course of that election some stars or furrow in fact it's been the second american revolution because it really is where political power

as the switch from one party to another for the first time in the country's history and what happens is the federalist that that don't know lines himself louisa may lose badly they lose every every state but one and thomas jefferson a democrat republicans win and so so no was party at this point is is very much out of power i'm but i think no himself still feels over a great need to play rolling in shaping this is no nation he's also a point in his life as a young mandela was with a very idealistic it is almost utopian believer in the natural goodness of citizens a project leader of the natural goodness all of the citizens of the state of this new country as an old man he becomes very pessimistic very bitter panties and cold running on a good day he was just for much money in the end you really

that bp because actually quite anti democratic as an old men played eighteen hundred m he's in his early forties and i think he's got a big one in the car from from his youthful idealism two years later pessimism iran is all about at this point i think to recognize our human shortcomings when he sees and what is still too young to be completely discouraged about trying to have an impact an end to hope for improvement in his fellow citizens so i think it looks all these conditions are around him and i think he sees a month so things an ongoing need for more education if if if we the people are going to rule this country and we the people need to be smart enough to do it and the only do that is with more education it sees great threats to national unity was to find ways to bring us together and he sees a greater need for for

more causes social control more ways to get us to behave better and i think what he sees on is that these issues could be addressed by of all things yes a dictionary so that's my thesis on this and it is speculative is sure no never says that that this is quite those many words of this is what he has in mind for his dictionary but but i am convinced that the reason arlen i think in large part no rights picture not just as an exercise in scholarship but really as a way of responding to her to this moment of political and social crisis there was no i think he sees use in the dictionary can respond to this in three very important ways you can educate people and i think no is if nothing else as likely as a great educator one common thread through everything is evolved and in his life is is being an educator and believing in the values of education

secondly i think he thinks of addiction really can be enough force to unify us know a belief that there is a thing called the american language and it's different from the language spoken in in england and i think he thinks it's something that all of us as americans can contribute yours and we all participate in its a little bit proud and hence i think why promoting this american language is trying to promote a kind of national unity i think we're seeing an increase in a world for this seems filled with centrifugal forces perhaps our language and our dictionary can be a centripetal force points and far i do think that that he hopes he can they can be a force for social control by inspiring people i think know like oh a lot of the founding fathers were great believer in leading by example and i think would know it really hopes is

that if you can do a great thing that inspires others to try to do great things as a particular isn't about a dictionary think that that also seems to pull out of the dishes or so with the kinds of values i think knows most interested in of care of attention a self discipline i think he sees teachers as a call for that and then hopes to really inspire people indian back on a direction the bargain this is in order for all of this to succeed on that it's a really has to be that time democratic document that i'm talking about it it has to be a democrat in order for people to rally around it in order for people to to be inspired by so it has to be that reflection of the language of the american people and it does have to be based on that strong believe in the legitimacy of the language that people are are creating so i think they're looking in this little book whether it's in the word list or the preface

or some of the political issues behind is in fact a plan as a real rationale for for dictionary making that i think holds up to scrutiny and even to today so let's do the time remaining as it is to bring that story up to the present and so to show you how we get from eighteen oh six to two thousand and six because in the past has not been a straight won the democratic document does have laws when it seems to go astray and then really try to bring it back in the most what a word that i've allowed myself to coin re democratize a shelley hwang for points where we read democratize addition to bring it back to its original goals and i think one of those old wells for support mones has to do with those great dictionary all of eighteen twenty eight is this is great achievement job rwanda's his hail those as his masterpiece i think we were some good reason

it's often hailed for his patriotism was as a great american document here what i think is interesting is really how old revolutionary the eighteen twenty addiction it really is as of ours suggested a lot of the american isms for which the eighteen twenty eight is praised in fact first going to be at now six and if you look at the eighteen point five what you see is you see what we're accepting the british usage and maybe a little less intent on recording american usage one scholar said that the blue plaques part of the world expo is a linguistic declaration of independence than the eighteen twenty dishes in eritrea parts where we essentially make our peace with the british what i was a from a publisher's one of you what what what i notice when it was similarities between the eighty twenty eight dictionary and samuel johnson's dictionary there both in two volumes they both have large toy they both

have wide margins they're both really quite handsome pieces of bookmaking in doeskin so what that means is that that it cost twenty dollars a copy and that's a huge amount of money in nineteen twenty eight so my research is worth and that is try to us would want to a handsome that was walkin at twenty eight us a good two and ideas of how us president to show what really would have been i'm so i think for a number of reasons if we give biting twenty eight no one should sell this really no longer creating the quintessential democratic doctrine either in terms of his editorial policies warren is marketing strategy what's what really makes the marriott brothers an interesting to our story and we would have to bring them in now jordan charles marion were young printers and booksellers in springfield massachusetts and we know what you guys in eighteen forty three georgian charles why are the rights from the webster family to

continue selling knows dictionary and to make provisions to it and to bring out new additions of it and the first of those two additions comes out and at forty seven for serra's very important date to merriam webster because this room and we consider this is the first merriam webster dictionary because now we have no one's own dictionary being published by george and charles marion i have to say the differences between the eighteen twenty eight and that eighty four seven are really quite striking first to wall an article about title i think it's important the tide gets very much smaller again the margins to a very narrow and all gets squeezed into one volume and the price goes from twenty dollars down to six dollars and that's what i really see at forty seven as was important read democratizing moments because at this point we now

make the dictionary available to much much more of the park tuition at six dollars is something that people can afford someone on at four seven marks the beginning of dictionary publishing and this country and it's wired merriam webster we're actually very proud of both parts of our name up out of the western part know after the great american lexicographer who invests lexicographer in this country the georgian charles marion who really invented show publishing in this country and really the reason why each of you probably has a dictionary at home or in your own studies or our officers no move them over for the four approved of it sixty four for another importantly democratizing moment and this one are somewhat for marketing reasons for price or for muppet really for editorial issues because a lot of the editorial issues left over from nose own work had not really been dealt within that eighteen forty seven edition

and by the eighteen fifties it was becoming quite clear that noah webster's were barely needed updating a lot of work had to be done there's really a very big job in fact that really is what i'm so cities sixty four apart from every additional hour before because every picture before at sixty four was pretty much a one man job samuel johnson pretty much worked alone with a few assistants know a pretty much worked alone with one assistant but after eighteen sixty four that justice no longer possible dictionaries have to be revised by large staffs a people and the person the company turned to put together this this floor staff people was el professor named joel porter and that is scarcely a household name but he really is when the great unsung heroes of america likes of iran's english language what are they cause he's the person really creates the model

for creating dictionaries with with large debts are completely editors and assistance of consultants and all of the managerial problems that come with that i would really make a case that that no dictionary that came after couldn't really been what it was made out of eighteen sixty four and an important role that it plays including i think on the oxford english dictionary which we think of as being created by lots and lots of people that the model for the current extra make us korea earlier in and at sixty four and has a kind of funny story about one of the staff members of at sixty four little cheerios if there is time during the question period but let's listen to the head to the most important moment of rain tomorrow a position which is today armed and what we're doing today to keep these traditions alive and armed i think there's three areas that i would one just touch on and then maybe we can discuss sports and the first army's electronics and increasing use of electronic delivery platforms for dictionary

information i think this is true he had to be a very scary time for a for a lot of publishers but i think that lexicographers in general have actually responded well to this to this very very much a particular we can totally fairly early on that electronic use doesn't necessarily threatened produce our summer which was an early license or a state or to publishers of the cd roms on handheld dictionaries and the handheld devices and later produce an indie e books and pbs and even then cellphones most importantly for use on the way and in nineteen ninety six we lost our own website reports on lawsuits where we offered free access to the tournaments online dictionary and learn a song one of the songs i am i have to tell you there was a very risky move very revenues that we get from sales of the print edition of the collegiate dictionary were then and are now hopping a

single source of revenue so to put it in a database like that on the web for free was a little scary but we really felt we needed to do it and it's only for two reasons the first related but you argue where we are in the life cycles of print and electronic technologies and that is that we see a self publishing in iraq by which privilege car technologies to exist side by side the other great down print and web designer richard sohl werman is his given name to this period he calls it the age of all solomon we're really quite drawn to that that phrase age of also new you'll see it in the booklet that you've been given but what happens in the age of all so it you know we see a proliferation of information delivery methods and what we're going to set in and i completely agree with what we have as a parent with a snow won best way for doing

anything there are just lots of good ways and so right now we have a website and last month served up a hundred and twenty five million page views to ditch their users about what we are still printing millions of copies of the print editions every year the second reason was was one of philosophical reasons because one the know would approve of we felt that if we were going to be the american dictionary that we have to be a dictionary of all americans and that includes americans who want to get the language information for free from the well and if we were going to be a danger for those americans somebody else would and we felt as important to know a western tradition is a dictionary that that we'd be additional americans including those americans and my hunch is the net effect of all this is more people are using it to share more frequently relevant than ever before and

secondly otis of touch on briefly that i think is important to tara suspect know it is a growing awareness on the part really of life in gold american dictionary publishers that we need to create prop frocks that meeting these are people who are learning english as a second language as a foreign language and up until recently meet in each of those kinds of in the sky with lasers pretty much been the sole province of british dictionary publishers but i think that our more more we are coming to see that that we need to create winners products both laugh for esl students as second lines in this country but also for people learning english around the world i think a great chance you're going to face is as we do this is to make sure that when creating these products and marketing and selling of racial reactors teachers and and not as conquerors we find ways to communicate or great love for the english language room without suggesting that there's anything better about english

or says a language that is the most spoken with a dozen years as a bass line and so i hope we can we can we can do this teaching respectful of both of other languages and all that new varieties of english that are emerging and we can do it in a way that welcomes all of the speakers of english to this is great shared project we have of inventing and reinventing english language and with that oh thank you even within fatah five john morse president and publisher phaidon merriam webster as part of merriam webster's dictionary and democracy to work more steaks questions from the audience the first question you said noah webster believes american english would become an important language in the future with even farsighted or just arrogant i think part of it was he certainly saw the british in which was already spreading because the british empire as i think you didn't know that that line would use is correlated

with cultural and political power and i think he did see says israel is americans took it did see that that the united states would become the arrival of britain and that would which would ultimately surpass great britain as being very powerful commercial and industrial and social force in the world and i think this is some of the summit a modest estimate kind of thinking that i think he did he did for cnn and firmly believe that that we would surpass the british and having the kind of global reach minority killings what do you think of websites like with a pdf and what's an eerie what's interesting to me about what appear in which america is it's not real differently for encyclopedias versus

dictionaries go with a pee really has become if you look on it sits right uses a website really had a tremendously use resource and it's hard to do a google search for anything about that with the pd a hit so it really has it really that has broad and as you know as is but in many people's phones or royalties like to be retired what's interesting is that we'd which that has not happened in dictionaries there is a wish america very few people use which america the result of urban dictionary which is an open source data show that anybody can make contributions to but it doesn't have its numbers are no worse near our numbers i am it really is hard work to a dictionary and say you just describe the lexicographers a harmless drudge and into some degree you know is talking about not to review this was one sign up for the task of sang

on there are five hundred and thirty two separate senses of the word take an artistic down strickland writer wants you really have to love line which to have to take that on end and not that many people like that march lexicographers don't take that task also i think it's more fun to be a contributor encyclopedia that the officers teachers are doing does are mostly focus on new words are not core vocabulary words our feelings about army general is mixed on but i think it is important way that that it's race is going to be gathered in fact if you come to our web site we do have an open source dictionary on to merriam webster website and then you come up with a new word to be a picture come to our web site go to the dictionary part time and you're free their job to make your submission we may or may not put it up on the offense to jamie we might not want their butt but in general

i'm weak that we diverted what i think that'll only local like to have is to find a collaboration of the two where we really do have a way of welcoming open source contributions to ditch tank but still keep the profession lexicographers involved with it to really bring out the best aspects of a sudden same thing and i don't think rough association run scared from open source reference materials but neither do i think that they can just be allowed to grow without a good deal of supervision and i think if you look at evolution with opinion you see jimmy wales doing exactly the same thing he will make that more more of a controlled source even if that makes him the true believers little cranky with him you've explained how words get into the dictionary how the words get out of the dictionary it is pretty much along the same rationale and they can be a little

trickier because you try to prove a negative but we do go and go around citation files and see if evidence has disappeared or were being used us or trick you somewhat famously said absence of evidence is not so heaven's of apps and so you he did it so that you pursue a more cautiously but now they're there are so many kinds of databases available to us that if our citation fall really seems silent on a word we can go out to other kinds of databases see if that word is really no longer showing up at all in the kinds of reading that we think people are doing most of the time in general what comes a crowd tends to be a very boring words they tend to be word psalms eight obsolete manufacturing techniques or scientific nomenclature this ain't no longer vote for one reason or another device of anatomical descriptive

terms of maybe an honest don't use any longer the survey they tend to be pretty special was worse at one point were being encountered frequently enough that they want to be in the dictionary but now there's another fallback below that that threshold am and we could take him out but it's it's it's always a tough it's always a tough call to their savior you're trying to prove a negative which is always a hard thing to do i will i will i will show you my my my funny story tom i seventy at sixty four that exist that we used at the first time used a big staff of people are made if you go to that the practice of nineteen sixty four you see the neon a lot of the people who worked on the staff the kitchen is our son for all they're very good work on on the project and want versus particularly singled out for for praise is a professor of geology yale university by james dana just a

rule for most famous scientists of the nineteenth century it really did just do tremendous work as a consultant and an editor on hitting sixty four for worse have to do with all of your sizes and watches the neo the physical sciences in general he has a young assistant who works with women and young assistant is also singled out for great praise for all the work that he did that really helped professor dana do such a wonderful job on on fires in the dictionary arm so here we are at sixty four as i thought it was really mostly at yale university a lot of intensity or a work would have been done in eighty six years to sixty one at age sixty two high in rehab babar young student yale university who really helped out and in very important ways on the stationary so i guess who this what wonderful young assistant is

ok you would be one more and on weight i was a medical degree video university so he is he's actually a young physician at yale university at sixteen whitey sixty two his name is william seymour another and if that name rings a bell to any of you is because he is the mayor of man in the book the professor and the madman was interesting is throughout that block gestures wonders owners did this young how this crazy person deposit interest in dictionaries and how they're going to be so good with dictionaries and in one citation so well where you get the skills and really get this great interest well the answer is because he used to work for promotion to turn back when he was sane for you or for every one of those questions

president and publisher of miriam webster his remarks were recorded november ninth two thousand sits at alderson auditorium at the university of kansas the recording engineer was tubby smith and j mcintyre keep your present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas for west side story that its heels into the great statements of the hearing now confronting gang violence and racial prejudice puerto rican immigrants and a milestone in gaza started traveling back to imagine some of the early twentieth century next time and keep your prisons the year was nineteen fifty seven west side story in the music man opened on broadway and murphy hall opened its doors on the university of kansas campus join as eight o'clock sunday night

right the fiftieth anniversary of the hall with a look at these two music night after night both laid out there competing visions seventy six trombones in the purses mambo and the rumble in nineteen fifty seven the music man and the sunday night at eight o'clock on kansas public radio oh geez it is