Word enthusiast Noah Webster, whose name is synonymous with dictionaries, spent the greater part of his life studying and cataloguing words. So devoted to the task, he committed to learning twenty-six languages, including Old English, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic and Sanskrit (a language of ancient India), to name a few. His dogged diligence led to America’s first dictionary, published in 1806 with 37,000 words.
Webster went on to publish two more dictionaries the following year and some twenty-two years later, in 1828, at the age of seventy, he completed his final dictionary, doubling the amount of words contained in his 1806 edition; one in every six words having never appeared in a dictionary before.
But let’s back up a bit… As America’s Revolutionary War was winding down in 1783, Webster, a former member of the Connecticut militia, published a textbook in 1786 that was to have an enormous influence on American culture, extending the ideals of the American Revolution into the realms of language and literature.
The first volume’s official title, The First Part of the Grammatical Institute of the English Language, was mercifully changed to The American Spelling Book. However, even that title was short-lived as generations of school children referred to it as the “Blue-Backed Speller,” primarily because of its characteristic blue cover.
It became the most popular American book of its time and has, in fact, never been out of print, selling over 100 million copies since it first “rolled” off the ol’ hand press.
Little did Webster know that this remarkable little gem would become the staple for parents and educators for more than a century. It helped to build the most literate nation in the history of the west with many of the founding fathers using the book to home school their children, including Benjamin
Franklin who taught his granddaughter to read, spell, and pronounce words using Webster’s
“Old Blue Back.”
For Webster this change in the system of words for communication was only part of a larger cultural transformation that would set
America free from what he saw as a corrupt and failing English/European mindset.
Webster’s American
Revolution was not just about changing political and economic institutions; it was about shaping a new American identity through the influential power of words and their meaning. Sound eerily familiar?
Some two centuries later, Iranian artist and writer Marjane Satrapi, the only child of westernized parents, appears to be on the same page as Webster regarding the profound power of words. Satrapi believes, “All big changes of the world come from words.”
During Noah Webster’s 1802 oration on the occasion of the 26th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence, the “Father of American Scholarship and Education,” alleged, ”Nations, like individuals, may be misled by an ardent enthusiasm, which allures them from the standard of practical wisdom, and commits them to the guidance of visionary projectors. By fondly cherishing the opinion that they enjoy some superior advantages of knowledge, or local situation, the rulers of a state may lose the benefit of history and observation, the surest guides in political affairs; and delude themselves with the belief, that they have wisdom to elude or power to surmount the obstacles which have baffled the exertions of their predecessors.”
To foster their delusions on the public, they deploy words as “weapons for warfare.” It’s become strategic.
As Canadian-born author Manly Hall observed, “Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad.” Words are the most lethal weapons used in the battle for hearts and minds. Sound bites and slogans are used to deliver persuasive messages and subversive ideas in an attempt to smuggle in highly charged political opinion.
We’ve certainly had front row seats, in recent months, to such insurrectionary strategies.
I suggest you buckle up in a campaign year that will be fraught with words intended to emotionally hijack, brainwash, manipulate and hysteria-harness a vulnerable electorate.
As noted British journalist Steven Poole, writes in his Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality, 2006: “These precision-engineered packages of language are launched by politicians and campaigners, and targeted at newspaper headlines and snazzy television graphics, where they land and dispense their payload of persuasion into the public consciousness.”
In his 1802 address in New Haven, Connecticut, Noah Webster warned, “Whatever may be the form of government… corruption and misrepresentation find access to those who have the disposal of offices; by various means and different channels indeed, but proceeding primarily from demagogues and office-seekers, of bold designs and profligate [recklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources] principles…the same perfidious [deceitful and untrustworthy] principles which impel men to betray their country and its religion, will make them treacherous to each other.”
American author Robert Greene, known for his books on strategy, power and seduction, suggests in his 2006 book, The Concise 33 Strategies of War: “Communication is a kind of war, its field of battle the resistant and defensive minds of the people you want to influence. The goal is to advance, to penetrate their defenses and occupy their minds.”
My advice, weigh their words…
See also: “Who ‘Owns’ the words?” May 20th, 2017 issue of the News Herald.
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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