Noah Webster: American Men of LettersScudder, Horace Elisha
History
Noah Webster: American Men of Letters
Scudder, Horace Elisha
Educators -- United States -- Biography; Lexicographers -- United States -- Biography; Webster, Noah, 1758-1843
He then, after admitting the value of Johnson's ethical writings, but
distrusting his philological attainments, makes good his objections by
detailed specifications. He condemns the insertion of a multitude of
words which do not belong to the language, mentioning such unnaturalized
foreigners as _adversable_, _advesperate_, _adjugate_, _agriculation_,
_abstrude_, _injudicable_, _spicosity_, _crapulence_, _morigerous_,
_tenebrosity_, _balbucinate_, _illachrymable_, etc., words to which the
reader may, if he knows Latin, attach some sort of meaning, but which he
would be slow to introduce into his speech or writing. Then he condemns
Johnson's reference to writers of the seventeenth century who buried
their thoughts beneath cumbrous piles of Latinized English, as in such
passages as:--
"The intire or broken _compagination_ of the magnetical fabric;" "The
effects of their activity are not precipitously _abrupted_, but
gradually proceed to their cessations;" "Some have written rhetorically
and _concessively_, not controverting, but assuming, the question,
which, taken as granted, advantaged the illation;" "Its fluctuations are
but motions subservient, which winds, shelves, and every interjacency
_irregulates_;" passages given as illustrative of the words italicized.
"From a careful examination of this work, and its effect upon the
language, I am inclined to believe that Johnson's authority has
multiplied instead of reducing the number of corruptions in the English
language. Let any man of correct taste cast his eye on such words as
_denominable_, _opiniatry_, _ariolation_, _assation_, _ataraxy_,
_clancular_, _comminuible_, _conclusible_, _dedentition_,
_deuteroscopy_, _digladiation_, _dignotion_, _cubiculary_,
_discubitory_, _exolution_, _exeuterate_, _incompossible_,
_incompossibility_, _indigitate_, etc., and let him say whether a
dictionary which gives thousands of such terms as authorized English
words is a safe standard of writing.... In the 'English-Dutch
Dictionary' of Willcocke, we find the compiler has translated
_ariolation_, _clancular_, _denomiable_, _comminuible_, etc., into
Dutch. In Bailey's 'Fahrenkruger,' we see _digladiation_, _dignotion_,
_exeuterate_, etc., turned into German. These, or similar words, are by
Neuman translated into Spanish, and where the mischief ends it is
impossible to ascertain. And what must foreigners think of English taste
and erudition, when they are told that their dictionaries contain
thousands of such words which are not used by the English nation!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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