Chapter 7, Pioneers! O Pioneers! Summary and Analysis

Americans and British people have generally thought that each other's form of English was somehow inferior to their own. This is particularly true of the English. The American Revolution led to a gradual divergence between American and Standard English and Americans deliberately changed some of their language to distinguish themselves. Many of the American Founders invented their own words. Americans were already a polyglot society and had to acknowledge that they would not have a single language although English would be the first language.

In 1828, Daniel Webster produced his famous Webster's dictionary, which was a landmark in separated American English from Standard English. His elementary Blue-Backed American Speller sold eighty million copies during his lifetime. Webster was deeply and explicitly committed to separating American and Standard English. Due to Webster, Americans use "color" instead of...