Many years ago we bought a reproduction of the 1828 Noah Webster American Dictionary of the English Language. We take dictionaries for granted nowadays, but it was quite a monumental project for Mr. Webster. He really wanted to make a dictionary “suited to the people of the United States.” He referred to it as a “work which shall be a guide to the youth of the United States.” He sought to rescue our language from “sciolists” (I had to look this up in his dictionary. It means “One who knows little, or who knows many things superficially; a smatterer.”) and to redeem our language from corruption.

Near the end of the preface, he said, “I present it to my fellow citizens…with my ardent wishes for their improvement and their happiness; and for the continued increase of the wealth, the learning, the moral and religious elevation of character, and the glory of my country.”

He also wrote “To that great and benevolent Being…I would present the tribute of my most grateful acknowledgments. And if the talent which he entrusted to my care, has not been put to the most profitable use in his service, I hope it has not been ‘kept laid up in a napkin,’ and that any misapplication of it may be graciously forgiven.”

After reading those words, I’m quite ashamed that up until this point I have not availed myself of Noah Webster’s great work very often. This lovely book has been used more often to press flowers than anything else.

My husband and I have been talking about reading through it, picking out words that are unfamiliar and adding them to our vocabulary. Maybe the word “skimming” should be used instead of “reading.” For fun I started looking through the “A’s” and stopped at the word “abature: grass beaten or trampled down by a stag in passing.” Now there’s a word your average person doesn’t get a chance to use very often. Here’s my attempt: “I saw a stag in the distance and in attempting to follow it, I looked for the abature left by its trampling.” I wonder if you could use the same word if it was a cow, horse or elephant doing the trampling?

I illustrated it. It seemed like the right thing to do.

This blog is produced by a sciolist and ought to be deleted (or trampled on by a stag) in the morning.