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READINGS IN LANGUAGE
This new section features links to interesting, instructive, or thought-provoking readings about the English language. The selections could be anywhere from light and humorous to serious and scholarly, and they range widely from the reading, writing, listening, and speaking disciplines to the teaching and learning of English.
Why doesn’t the English-speaking world celebrate Dictionary Day?
Why don’t people in the English-speaking world celebrate Dictionary Day?
Erin McKean wistfully asks this question in “The Case for Dictionary Day,” an article he wrote for the October 18, 2009 issue of the Boston Globe. “It’s not like Dictionary Day is too obviously geeky to inspire celebration,” he argues, “[for] in the past month we’ve seen outpourings of support for both National Punctuation Day (Sept. 24) and Talk Like A Pirate Day (Sept. 19). Even National Grammar Day (March 4) gets its share of the spotlight.”
So he reasons that it’s only proper and fitting that we should celebrate Dictionary Day every October 16, for that day is the birthday of Noah Webster (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843), the American lexicographer, textbook author, editor, and spelling reformer who came out with An American Dictionary of the English Language, the first modern English dictionary in the New World.
Read Erin McKean’s “The Case for Dictionary Day” in the Boston Globe now!
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