15 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2024
  2. Feb 2024
    1. When Marsh sent out his appeal for American Readers, what wasknown as the ‘Dictionary War’ had been waging for some time between twoleading lexicographers, Noah Webster and Joseph Worcester. Worcester hadbeen Webster’s assistant on his American Dictionary of the English Language(1828) but, a superior philologist to Webster,
  3. Jan 2024
    1. epiphany

      Derived from the Greek word epiphaneia, epiphany means “appearance,” or “manifestation.” In literary terms, an epiphany is that moment where a someone achieves realization, awareness, or a feeling of knowledge, after which events are seen through the prism of this new light

  4. Sep 2023
    1. In 1807, he started writing a dictionary, which he called, boldly, An American Dictionary of the English Language. He wanted it to be comprehensive, authoritative. Think of that: a man sits down, aiming to capture his language whole.

      Johnson's dictionary is much like this article describes too.

      Perhaps we need more dictionaries with singular voices rather than dictionaries made by committee?

  5. Nov 2022
  6. Nov 2021
  7. Apr 2021
    1. glossolalia

      Merriam-Webster define glossolalia as

      ecstatic, typically unintelligible utterance occurring especially in a moment of religious excitation —usually plural

    1. ecstatic, typically unintelligible utterance occurring especially in a moment of religious excitation —usually plural

      Glossolalia.

    1. I'm going to try uploading this to test it out on my Paperwhite.

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>James Somers</span> in You’re probably using the wrong dictionary « the jsomers.net blog (<time class='dt-published'>04/03/2021 15:21:10</time>)</cite></small>

  8. Feb 2020
    1. grammar : a punctuation mark — that is used especially to indicate a break in the thought or structure of a sentence
  9. Dec 2019
    1. epiphany

      Derived from the Greek word epiphaneia, epiphany means “appearance,” or “manifestation.” In literary terms, an epiphany is that moment where a someone achieves realization, awareness, or a feeling of knowledge, after which events are seen through the prism of this new light

  10. Feb 2019
    1. to have sprung from some common source,

      I heard once that Noah Webster subscribed to this view of all languages coming from one ancient language, but I can't find any source to corroborate that.

  11. Sep 2016
    1. The use of they/them to identify a single person, rather than two or more people, has not been without controversy.Maryland state education official Andy Smarick made headlines earlier this month after sharing his thoughts via Twitter on Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s use of the singular “they” when referring to one of the dictionary’s staffers.“The singular they is an affront to grammar. Language rules are all that separates us from animals. We. Must. Stand. Firm,” Smarick wrote in a tweet that has since been deleted.The dictionary retorted in a tweet: “Then you’re talking to the wrong dictionary — we’re descriptivists. We follow language, language doesn’t follow us.”

      Smarick vs. Webster's prescriptivism debate