October 16, 2020 – National Dictionary Day | National Sports Day

This Rebel Of Words Took 27 Years To Complete His Best Known Work. But He Didn’t Stop There!

Welcome to October 16, 2020 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate rebels with a cause and a healthy expression of our competitive spirit. 

American Noah Webster is best known for publishing A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language in 1806.  His belief that the English spelling rules were unnecessarily complicated, led him to compile the American English spellings, which we take for granted today until we run across words such as “color” with an extra ‘u’ or center with an ‘re’ ending.  This task took 27 years to complete and required Webster to learn twenty-six languages, including Old English, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. He also added American words such as “skunk” and “squash” that did not appear in British dictionaries. And he argued with the great minds of the day about the idea of climate change and his fierce opposition to slavery. On National Dictionary Day we celebrate the spirit of going against the grain with an original rebel of words.

Organized sports were introduced to the world at the first Olympic Games in Ancient Greece. The first events were based on training for war and hunting—races, wrestling, jumping, and javelin throwing. And that’s a good thing. Because it became a way for people to prove who was better and hash out differences without hurting one another with weapons. Sports are cathartic and bring people together. You can see it at most amateur and professional sporting events: Athletes scream and yell and try to beat their opponents, but when the game is over, they congratulate one another. They laugh. They shake hands and hug. Because in the end we’re all human and that’s what counts. On National Sports Day, celebrate the spirit of friendly competition!

If you’d like to know more, be sure to follow us on Facebook and check out our website TheNationalDailyShow.com. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson.  Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day!


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