Joseph Emerson Worcester - Critical Response and Legacy

Critical Response and Legacy

Unlike Webster, Worcester adhered to British pronunciation and spellings, calling them "better", "more accurate", "more harmonious and agreeable". He opposed Webster's spelling reforms (e.g. tuf for tough, dawter for daughter), to Webster's disapproval. The 20th century lexicographer and scholar James Sledd noted that the commercial rivalry between the two attracted significant public interest in lexicography and dictionaries. It was not until 1864, when the much-improved Webster-Mahn Dictionary, which completely revised etymologies, was published, that the Worcester dictionary was outsold in the American marketplace.

Worcester sent a copy of one of his dictionaries to the author Washington Irving, who predicted it would be used "to supply the wants of common schools". Though Webster's dictionary was the more popular, Worcester's book proved to be a favorite among writers. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote that the book was one "on which, as is well known, the literary men of this metropolis are by special statute allowed to be sworn in place of the Bible." Edward Everett Hale wrote of the 1860 Dictionary of the English Language: "We have at last a good dictionary."