Noah Webster’s Fighting Words
Tracy Nelson Maurer
This biography follows Noah Webster’s lifelong interest in words and his efforts to put them to political use during the Revolutionary War. As a teacher, he wrote a speller for students who had previously used British books. He argued that American words should match American pronunciation, changing some spellings and adding terms such as “skunk.” The book traces his later work on an American English dictionary and the ideas that shaped it.
This book appears on 3 reading lists across 2 editions from 3 organizations.
