1. DRIVE – The Drive of Noah Webster
Of its seventy thousand entries, some thirty-five thousand had never before appeared in a dictionary. True to his goal, Noah included many new American words such as skunk and apple- sauce . Each definition was a well-written mini-essay that included an example for use. Most impressively, Noah did all this work alone, giving all he had to the project Three years later, when Noah was 70 years old, his dictionary was published in two volumes. It sold out within a year and, some- what surprisingly, sold more copies in England than in his own country. Praise for his great book poured in from the United States and Europe. Today, nearly two hundred years later, the name Webster is synonymous with a dictionary. Noah was driven by a desire to make the English language easier for everyone to use and understand, from the child learning to read to the statesman inspiring his fellow citizens. For him, cor- rectly defined words not only made clear communication possible but also helped make studies more perfectly learned and useful. He knew what was needed for everyone was “practical knowledge; that which they are to use in their occupations, in their daily social interactions, and in their moral duties; for on such knowledge depend chiefly their prosperity, their reputation, and their value as citizens, and their everlasting happiness.”
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