Ogandydancer
Member
Everytime he said something his wife had a habit of asking him "and what does that mean". So he wrote the dictionary and then gave it to her and, the next time she asked "and what does that mean"' he just said look it up.
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Why Webster wrote the dictionary
- Thread starter Ogandydancer
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He just condensed all the other books down into one.
vigil617
US Veteran
"Condensed" isn't exactly the word that comes to mind when I think of Webster's tome, but I can appreciate your line of creative reasoning there.
Old TexMex
Member
No, no, no.... He was trying to remember an old Kentish word, so he just started writing down until he remembered it...it was Zyxt.
shouldazagged
Absent Comrade
Good grief, Cowboy, I hadn't thought about The Blue Back Speller for seventy years! Do you also remember The Twice 55 Songbook? Full of hip stuff like "Funiculi, Funicula" and "Reuben And Rachel".
My hilariously depraved late brother and I made up countless bizarre and often extremely crude titles to add to that mess.
Why would he make such a large heavy book and suggest she "use" it. She could fracture his skull!
Aticus
Member
I've often wondered if you don't know what a word means, how are you supposed to know how to spell it so that you can look it up? 
zzzippper
Member
I've often wondered if you don't know what a word means, how are you supposed to know how to spell it so that you can look it up?
When my kids asked how to spell a word I told them D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y.
What is bad is when you can't even get close enough for spell check to figure it out.
"Jack and Jill went up the hill".
He wrote it so I could play.....
He wrote it so I could play 'word chase'. Look up a word, especially a jawbreaker or archaic term, then find roots, derivatives, synonyms......everything for about an hour when you end up on a word that is miles away from the one you first looked up after looking up the words in the definitions that that made you curious as or origin, whatever. This is my idea of fun. Ok, I'm a geek and proud of it.
He wrote it so I could play 'word chase'. Look up a word, especially a jawbreaker or archaic term, then find roots, derivatives, synonyms......everything for about an hour when you end up on a word that is miles away from the one you first looked up after looking up the words in the definitions that that made you curious as or origin, whatever. This is my idea of fun. Ok, I'm a geek and proud of it.
Skootertrash
US Veteran
"Jack and Jill went up the hill".
I will bet a 6 pack they weren't going up the hill for water. Wait a minute. That might have been Jack and Dianne, or Jill. Hell he could have taken both of them up that hill.
Ivan the Butcher
Member
Wait a minute; I thought Maryon Webster wrote the dictionary and his nephew, Noah was a congressman. I tried looking it up but, it isn't in my Funk and Wagnal's! Ivan
The real answer has been hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's porch since last Tuesday.
