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    On 23 July 1788, a curious procession marched through New York City. The occasion was the __1__ of the new American constitution. The demonstrators included all sorts – professional men, tradespeople and laborers. Among them, an association of young men carried through the streets of New York a book __2__ Federal Language. These words are Noah Webster’s, celebrating a now forgotten side of US linguistic nationalism. The most famous of all American lexicographers, a(n) __3__ champion of American English, Webster was as influential in the making of American English as George Washington was in the __4__ of the American revolution. From his youthful Dissertation on the English Language (1789) to his great monument of 1828, now simply referred to as Webster’s, this great American patriot’s work, like Samuel Johnson’s in England, is a(n) __5__.

    Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1758 and, like many young revolutionaries, turned from law to teaching as a means of livelihood. Between 1783 and 1785, Webster published three elementary English textbooks: a speller, a grammar and a classroom reader, __6__ he attached the grandiose title “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language”.

    The success of the American Speller gave Webster, on a royalty of one cent per copy, more than enough to live on. He now __7__ the rest of his life __7__ the new, and distinctive “American language”. In 1806, taking the next step in his programme to __8__ America’s national language, Webster published his first dictionary, and it had become a pillar of American culture.

    Since 1961, Webster’s has been reprinted __9__ with minor changes. An addenda section was added in 1966, to cope with the constant __10__ of new words. This was expanded in 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1993 and 2002. Now, like all dictionaries the world over, Webster’s has a new online existence, reaching a global audience that Noah Webster could only have dreamed about.