Noah Webster, (born Oct. 16, 1758) – Benjamin Franklin consulted him about alphabet reform.

Noah Webster, (born Oct. 16, 1758, West Hartford, Conn., U.S.—died May 28, 1843, New Haven, Conn.), U.S. lexicographer and writer. He attended Yale University and then studied law. While working as a teacher in New York, he began his lifelong efforts to promote a distinctively American education. Reflecting his principle that spelling, grammar, and usage should be based on the living, spoken language, it was instrumental in establishing the dignity and vitality of American English. In 1821 Webster cofounded Amherst College. The rights to the dictionary were purchased from his estate by George and Charles Merriam.

Yet with all his accomplishments, Webster was also notably dislikable. Arrogant, condescending, humorless and socially tone-deaf, he alienated and insulted his friends, political allies and potential professional contacts. With “The Forgotten Founding Father,” the freelance journalist Joshua Kendall gives us a lively and insightful biography, the best picture we have of Webster’s complex character.

A man of severe mien and stubborn industry, Webster divided his allegiance between conservatism and audacity. Long after the fashion changed, he went about in black knee breeches and black silk stockings: long before America gained its cultural independence, he fought to free the nation from what he termed blind and servile veneration of European authorities. “America must be as independent in literature as she is in politics,” he declared, as famous for arts as for arms.”

Benjamin Franklin consulted him about alphabet reform; George Washington sought his advice on pedagogy; Jefferson dismissed him as “a mere pedagogue of limited understanding and very strong prejudices and party associations.”

Try though he might, he was unable to cure himself of the plague endemic to lexicography—fiat vs. custom, prescription vs. passivity. if critics refused to accept popular usage, Webster argued that it was sanctioned by custom: when conservatives rejected innovation, Webster complained that people were ready to correct errors everywhere except in language.

Webster truly made his mark in 1828 with the “American Dictionary of the English Language.” Published in two volumes, it was significantly more comprehensive than other dictionaries of the time. The book included many scientific and technical words, as well as thousands of terms unique to American English, including squash, moose, levee, prairie and skunk. His definitions were masterly; Sir James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, called him a “born definer of words.”

Webster’s character contradictions went beyond being a political and linguistic revolutionary who was also morally conservative. Though a condescending snob, he was genuinely concerned with the poor, and an aggressive supporter of abolitionist causes and women’s education. In his youth he was an excellent dancer and a ladies’ man with a “keen interest in attractive young women,” yet he was a prig who published a cleaned-up edition of the Bible and who scorned popular drama even while at Yale, not even exempting Shakespeare from criticism (“His language is full of errors”).

Many people viewed the highly praised dictionary as overly innovative; educated Americans, even those who supported Webster’s jingoism, were often conservative linguistically, adhering to British norms, and unwilling to challenge the authority of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary of 1755. But Webster’s work and later versions were ultimately accepted as the standard for America. SOURCE: Britannic; New York Times.