Not quite right Tom - the following extract from a Wikipedia entry suggests
that Mr. Webster and Dr. Johnston were latecomers!
<QUOTE>
One of the earliest dictionaries known, and which is still extant today in
an abridged form, was written in Latin during the reign of the emperor
Augustus. It is known by the title De Significatu Verborum ("On the meaning
of words") and was originally compiled by Verrius Flaccus. It was twice
abridged in succeeding centuries, first by Sextus Pompeius Festus, and then
by Paul the Deacon. Verrius Flaccus' dictionary was an abridged list of
difficult or antiquated words, whose usage was illustrated by quotations
from early Roman authors.
The Erya, from the early 3rd century BC, was the first Chinese language
dictionary. The book organized Chinese characters by semantic groups. The
intention of this dictionary was to explain the true meaning and
interpretation of words in the context of older ancient texts.
The word "dictionary" comes from neoclassical Latin, dictio, meaning simply
"word".
The first true English dictionary was Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall
of 1604, although it only included 3,000 words and the definitions it
contained were little more than synonyms. The first one to be at all
comprehensive was Thomas Blount's dictionary Glossographia of 1656. This was
followed by Samuel Johnson's famous and more complete dictionary of 1755.
In 1806, Noah Webster's dictionary was published by the G&C Merriam Company
of Springfield, Massachusetts which still publishes Merriam-Webster
dictionaries, but the term Webster's is considered generic and can be used
by any dictionary.
</QUOTE>
John Coyle
Brisbane, Australia
----- Original Message -----
From: "graywolf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <pdml@pdml.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 2:27 PM
Subject: Re: OT Question (was Re: OT Is returning a phone message really
thatcomplicated)
> Hey! We invented the dictionary. That insured that we had a standardized
> way to misspell the words.
>
> Stan Halpin wrote:
>> Some time ago, (late 1800's?) there was a spelling reform movement in
>> the U.K. Strangely, they got rid of the z's, but kept the ou's (as in
>> colour, honour, ...). In the U.S. such reforms never have a chance
>> because nobody knows how to spell in the first place.
>>
>> Stan
>>
>> On Jan 8, 2007, at 4:06 PM, K.Takeshita wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/08/07 4:56 PM, "Adam Maas", <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The s is correct, z is american usage (Sadly common in Canada as the
>>>> schools teach correct english less and less).
>>> Thanks Adam.
>>> One more person to confirm this?
>>>
>>> I learned English in Japan, where they taught U.K. English in school at
>>> least in my days (now they are probably teaching American English but
>>> I am
>>> not sure). So, when I came to Canada, I felt comfortable because of
>>> English
>>> spelling and metric system etc. But I always remembered "Z" instead
>>> of "S"
>>> in those particular spellings. Moreover, I think I started recognizing
>>> (recognising :-) this "S" spelling rather recently.
>>> But if "S" is correct, then I have to mind to switch to "S".
>>>
>>> Ken
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>
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