英语单词大师：How Noah Webster's

 AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: more from our interview with Arthur Schulman. He's compiled a book of words and definitions set forth¹ by Noah Webster in his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language.

RS: "Tell us a little bit about Noah Webster, who he was and how he came about writing his dictionary."ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "Well, he did a lot of things. He was a patriot². He was at Yale University when the [American] revolution broke out, and then he had to leave school for the revolution. He came back and finished his degree there. After the revolution, he was an early newspaperman, a columnist³. And then he was a Federalist -- until his death, I think, but certainly early on, defending the revolution and a great supporter of it."AA: "And as I understand it, he believed that the nation -- the new nation -- really needed a national language."ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "That's right. And so he was a considerable educator. In fact, his first books were called -- there were three books, all part of what he called the Grammatical Institute, and the first one was the Speller, which continued in print until well past nineteen hundred. So that book was in print for more than a hundred years."RS: "Did he have a problem or an issue, that all these different spellings he wanted to --ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "Well, early on he, like [Ben] Franklin, was interested in reforming spelling and really making radical⁴ changes so that the written language could be read and sound like the spoken language. But I think everybody gave that up as an impossible job after a while. He clung to a few spelling changes that he still hoped to have last in his eighteen twenty-eight dictionary, but by that time he was no longer a spelling crusader."RS: "And what was the product that he produced in eighteen twenty-eight."ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "In eighteen twenty-eight he produced a dictionary of seventy thousand words that he had been working on for well over twenty years -- actually, I think more like twenty-five years. And he did that because he felt very strongly that the country needed a dictionary to reflect the language that existed here, which was no longer exactly the same as the language that existed in the home country, or England."AA: "Can you give us two or three examples?"ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "Well, I'll give you an example of a word that's changed its meaning. The word 'empiricism' meant back in Webster's time the practice of medicine without a medical education -- quackery⁵ is what it meant. 'The pretensions⁶ of an ignorant man to medical skill.' And now what we mean by empiricism is the attention to the way the world is, recording⁷ what we observe."AA: "Evidence."ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "Yes."AA: "What's another example?"ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "Well, I can give you examples of things that he didn't catch, for example, because they were too new or they hadn't really come into the language yet. For example, 'browse⁸,' in the sense of skimming through a book, reading passages that catch the eye. That's the way we use browse mostly these days. And in his time it still meant the literal sense of grazing, as a cow would graze in a field.

"He had a hard time marketing⁹ the book. He was going door-to-door trying to sell it. And it was an expensive pair of volumes when it came out. The dictionary then went into a second edition that he was largely responsible for. And then it was taken over by the Merriam company. So it became Merriam-Webster, and we've had Merriam-Webster with us ever since."RS: "And what does this dictionary tell us about the American character -- who were we as Americans in eighteen twenty-eight?"ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "Well, it tells us a lot about Webster's character. He was a great moralist. His moralism pervades¹⁰ the definitions throughout the book. He tells us how to behave. He tells us what's right. He tells us that we should educate our children. He tells us that slavery is evil. He tells us all kinds of things and these things work their way into many, many definitions.

"He tells us that 'Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous¹¹ intercourse¹² of the sexes.' He will quote from Franklin, from [George] Washington, from John Adams, from the Federalist Papers whenever he can."RS: "Any quotes from women?"ARTHUR SCHULMAN: "No. And what is more striking is that there are no quotes from Jefferson, because he was really on the outs with Jefferson. Jefferson was a deist and Webster couldn't stand deism. It was a denial of revelation."AA: Arthur Schulman's book is called "Websterisms: A Collection of Words and Definitions Set Forth by the Founding Father of American English." For more about Noah Webster, go to voanews.com/wordmaster. And that's WORDMASTER for this week. With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

1 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

2 patriot   

n.爱国者，爱国主义者

参考例句：

• He avowed himself a patriot.他自称自己是爱国者。
• He is a patriot who has won the admiration of the French already.他是一个已经赢得法国人敬仰的爱国者。

3 columnist   

n.专栏作家

参考例句：

• The host was interviewing a local columnist.节目主持人正在同一位当地的专栏作家交谈。
• She's a columnist for USA Today.她是《今日美国报》的专栏作家。

4 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

5 quackery   

n.庸医的医术，骗子的行为

参考例句：

• Some scientists relegate parapsychology to the sphere of quackery. 一些科学家把灵学归类到骗术范围。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• In a famous play by Goethe, the doctor is accused of practicing quackery. 在歌德的一部著名剧目里，一名医生被指控进行庸医行骗。 来自互联网

6 pretensions   

自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力

参考例句：

• The play mocks the pretensions of the new middle class. 这出戏讽刺了新中产阶级的装模作样。
• The city has unrealistic pretensions to world-class status. 这个城市不切实际地标榜自己为国际都市。

7 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

8 browse   

vi.随意翻阅，浏览；(牛、羊等)吃草

参考例句：

• I had a browse through the books on her shelf.我浏览了一下她书架上的书。
• It is a good idea to browse through it first.最好先通篇浏览一遍。

9 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

10 pervades   

v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• An unpleasant smell pervades the house. 一种难闻的气味弥漫了全屋。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• An atmosphere of pessimism pervades the economy. 悲观的气氛笼罩着整个经济。 来自辞典例句

11 promiscuous   

adj.杂乱的，随便的

参考例句：

• They were taking a promiscuous stroll when it began to rain.他们正在那漫无目的地散步，突然下起雨来。
• Alec know that she was promiscuous and superficial.亚历克知道她是乱七八糟和浅薄的。

12 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。