Joseph Emerson Worcester
Joseph Emerson Worcester was an influential American lexicographer known for his scholarly contributions to the field of dictionary-making during the 19th century. Born in Bedford, New Hampshire, in a large family, Worcester showed a passion for academics early on, eventually graduating from Yale University. He began his career as a teacher and wrote significant reference works, including geography textbooks that were widely adopted, such as "Elements of Geography." Worcester’s lexicographical work started in 1828 with an edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary, followed by his own "A Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language" in 1830.
Unlike his contemporaneous rival Noah Webster, who aimed to influence American English usage, Worcester focused on accurate documentation and conservative adherence to British language models. His rivalry with Webster intensified due to various publishing conflicts, including a pirated version of Worcester's dictionary that featured Webster's name. Throughout his life, Worcester gained recognition for his scholarly achievements, receiving honorary degrees and election to prestigious societies. He married Amy Elizabeth McKean later in life, and although they had no children, she supported his work. Worcester passed away in Cambridge in 1865, leaving a lasting impact on American lexicography.
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Joseph Emerson Worcester
Lexicographer
- Born: August 24, 1784
- Birthplace: Bedford, New Hampshire
- Died: October 27, 1865
- Place of death: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Biography
American lexicographer Joseph Emerson Worcester was the foremost contemporary rival of famous lexicographer Noah Webster. In contrast to Webster’s sensationalism, Worcester was a patient and academically oriented lexicographer who inaugurated many of the modern methods of how dictionaries should be made. Whereas Webster attempted to influence speech and usage, Worcester was dedicated to its accurate documentation and representation, although in his conservativism he was more committed to British models of the language than Webster. Due to these differences and a variety of publishing issues, including the inclusion of Webster’s name on a pirated English version of Worcester’s dictionary, the rivalry between the two men was heated and intense.
Worcester was born in Bedford, New Hampshire. He was the second out of fifteen children born to retired schoolteacher Jesse Worcester, who was a direct decendant of the first minister of the Salisbury, Massachusetts, Congregationalist Church. Jesse Worcester had taken up farming upon retirement, and his children were needed to work on the farm, so their schooling was sporadic, although they studied at night. Joseph was very studious, and when he turned twenty-one, he enrolled in the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts—studying elementary subjects with students over ten years his junior. He graduated in 1809 at the age of twenty-five and enrolled at Yale, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in two years. This dedication to academic pursuits would characterize the remainder of his career.
Worcester accepted a teaching position in Salem, Massachusetts, after his graduation from Yale, working there from 1811 until 1816 and counting a young Nathaniel Hawthorne among his pupils. During this time, Worcester wrote his first reference book: A Geographical Dictionary: Or, Universal Gazetteer, Ancient and Modern (1817). It was published shortly after he left Salem to teach at his former school in Andover for a year before relocating in 1819 to Cambridge, where he would remain for the duration of his life.
In 1819, he published a geography textbook called Elements of Geography, Ancient and Modern: With an Atlas, which became the required text at Harvard and was used by Henry David Thoreau at Concord Academy. In the decade after his move to Cambridge, Worcester wrote several more history and geography textbooks and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Worcester’s first lexicographical work was published in 1828, the same year that Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. Worcester’s work was an edition of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, containing John Walker’s 1791 key to pronounciation. Worcester had already begun work on his A Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language with Pronouncing Vocabularies, which would be published in 1830, but the success of his edition of Johnson resulted in his being hired to abridge Webster’s American Dictionary. Worcester was reluctant, but the publisher gave Worcester great latitude in content decisions, and Worcester abridged the dictionary according to his own principles, including words from other dictionaries, compressing definitions, and deleting Webster’s citations. He allowed variant spellings and altered pronunciations that Webster had rejected. Webster was furious with Worcester and the publisher, Goodrich, and the ensuing bad blood lasted throughout their lives and colored the debate over American lexicography for the duration of Webster’s life, although Worcester’s methodologies eventually became standard practice.
When he was fifty-seven years old, Worcester married Amy Elizabeth McKean, the daughter of a Harvard professor. She was forty years old at the time of their marriage and they had no children, although she assisted Worcester in his writing and research.
In recognition for the quality of his scholarship, Worcester received honorary degrees from Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, and was elected to the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Royal Geographical Society of London. Although his name is not as famous as his rival, his reputation during his lifetime was solid and his legacy is secure. He died in Cambridge in 1865.