http://www.sinandsyntax.com/online-and-on-the-shelf/dictionaries/ An online salon for those who love wicked good prose. Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:13:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.sinandsyntax.com/online-and-on-the-shelf/dictionaries/comment-page-1/#comment-757 Constance Hale Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:07:03 +0000 http://www.sinandsyntax.com/?p=317#comment-757 Bill Bryson, in The Mother Tongue, explains that after Noah Webster’s death in 1843,Charles and George Merriam from Springfield, Mass., bought the rights to his dictionaries. (His Elementary Spelling Book was a huge bestseller, though his massive American Dictionary of the English Language is the one he's most remembered for.) The Merriam brothers employed Webster's son-in-law to prepare a new volume and expunge the oddest spellings and most far-fetched etymologies. The first Merriam-Webster dictionary appeared in 1847. Bill Bryson, in The Mother Tongue, explains that after Noah Webster’s death in 1843,Charles and George Merriam from Springfield, Mass., bought the rights to his dictionaries. (His Elementary Spelling Book was a huge bestseller, though his massive American Dictionary of the English Language is the one he’s most remembered for.) The Merriam brothers employed Webster’s son-in-law to prepare a new volume and expunge the oddest spellings and most far-fetched etymologies. The first Merriam-Webster dictionary appeared in 1847.

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