The Dictionary Wars

Download or read book The Dictionary Wars written by Peter Martin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified American language.