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Joseph Emerson Worcester |
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Virtually unknown today both to the general public and to most academicians, Joseph Emerson Worcester was one of the two most revered lexicographers in the United States from 1830 until the last decades of the nineteenth century. A quiet, dignified, and unassuming man, Worcester was a linguistic conservative; he used the educated speech of London as his standard for spelling and pronunciation, and he cited British writers to illustrate word usage. His rival, Noah Webster, wanted to Americanize spelling and pronunciation, and when he could not find an American writer to cite, he made up his own illustrations. Webster thought it his duty to set the standard of American English that should be followed by everyone in every part of the country. As much as Worcester admired the British standard, however, he believed that a lexicographer's task was to reflect the language of the people, not to impose a language upon them.
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