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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck

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Speaker 1: and this is short stuff. Uh. And the one where

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Speaker 1: we get into explaining why some places you go to

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Speaker 1: see a movie or a play or spelled theater th

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Speaker 1: h E a t r E, and others are spelled

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Speaker 1: theater th h e a t e r and has

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Speaker 1: nothing to do with one being futuristic or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: And I love this because like when we go on

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Speaker 1: live tour, Chuck, it's almost invariably theater, but um, there

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Speaker 1: every once in a while you run up against the

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Speaker 1: place of venue that spells it theater with the E

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Speaker 1: er instead of R e um, and it's it's mind boggling,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's probably the worst thing that happens on

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Speaker 1: tours that is having to deal with the differentiation between

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Speaker 1: those two. Yeah, it's funny at the head of feeling

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Speaker 1: you were going to mention that, because when we do

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Speaker 1: our our tour website there through through our old peals

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Speaker 1: at squarespace, Um, I always have to go back and

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Speaker 1: double check, and you're right, it usually is r E

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Speaker 1: it seems like. And I like the way that looks

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Speaker 1: on paper and on a billboard. Yeah, it looks very regal.

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Speaker 1: It reminds you of like rich, yeah, rich, like umu

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Speaker 1: red deep red velvet curtains and things like that. It's

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Speaker 1: like an Evening with Josh and Chuck, not just Josh

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Speaker 1: and Chuck comes to Josh and Chuck. If you one

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Speaker 1: who cares, you know, that's the E R version. The

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Speaker 1: R E version is like you said, in the Evening

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Speaker 1: with Josh and Chuck. That's right. Uh. So this all

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Speaker 1: came about from one man and his name was Noah Webster.

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Speaker 1: And at first I was thinking, wait a minute, did

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Speaker 1: mel Gibson play him in a movie? But I looked

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Speaker 1: it up and that was the guy who was writing

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Speaker 1: the Oxford English Dictionary. Not know a Webster who wrote

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Speaker 1: Webster's Dictionary? What book was that? A movie? Was that

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Speaker 1: The Man with Two Faces? No, it was, uh the

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Speaker 1: Professor and the Madman. I think I have never heard

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Speaker 1: of that. Okay, So I have, so I've heard the

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Speaker 1: story before that there there was a dictionary out there.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was the American English Dictionary, not not

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Speaker 1: the Oxford one. That like, there was a guy who

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Speaker 1: um was in an asylum for decades and contributed like

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Speaker 1: significantly to that dictionary, Right, that's the one. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: haven't seen it, but I've heard I've heard good things

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Speaker 1: I didn't know was in it. Yeah, the famous anti Semite. Right.

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Speaker 1: So um, we're talking instaid about the other dictionary, not

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Speaker 1: the Oxford English Dictionary, the American English Dictionary created by

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Speaker 1: Noah Webster, who turns out to have been a bit

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Speaker 1: of a Polly math back in the eighteenth century. Cool dude,

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Speaker 1: from what I understand, Yeah, he seems like a quite

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Speaker 1: the renaissance man. He was born in Connecticut in seventeen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight, and after the Revolutionary War started in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy five, he was in college at Yale. War ends

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Speaker 1: he's uh in a militia, like a Patriot militia, graduates

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Speaker 1: and then becomes a teacher and then an attorney, and

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Speaker 1: then started to say, your articles of Confederation or garbage

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Speaker 1: in the way they're they're laid out, and it would

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Speaker 1: be much better if you did these things. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: couldn't find what he was um credited with as far

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Speaker 1: as that goes, although I did see um some free

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Speaker 1: speech stuff. He may have been a big advocate of

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Speaker 1: free speech. Well, he was a member of Anti Slavery Society.

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Speaker 1: So he was a founder of the Connecticut Society for

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Speaker 1: the Abolition of Slavery. Yeah, so that tracks. And he

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Speaker 1: also helped found Amherst College in Massachusetts. But he's known

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Speaker 1: as a dictionary guy. Yeah. And he had this whole

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Speaker 1: thing where he felt like America needed to come into

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Speaker 1: its own intellectually or celebrate its culture more intellectually, and

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Speaker 1: that a good way to do that was to kind

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Speaker 1: of separate itself, um, education wise from the old British

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Speaker 1: system in the old British books and used brand new, um,

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Speaker 1: beautiful American books. Uh. And he there weren't any at

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Speaker 1: the time, so he said about creating one himself. He

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Speaker 1: found out like, actually, little American school kids are learning

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Speaker 1: from the old British books, and he was very upset

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Speaker 1: about that. So he said, you know what, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to create something different. Yeah. And pre dictionary, which we'll

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Speaker 1: get to after the break, he wrote something called the

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Speaker 1: American Spelling Book, um, which was also referred to as

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Speaker 1: the Blue Backed Speller. I guess at a blue cover

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Speaker 1: on the back is the only I can think of,

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Speaker 1: or it was referring to a character who had a

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Speaker 1: blue back in the book, maybe so, but it was

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Speaker 1: a big success. It's sold about a hundred million copies

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Speaker 1: by three which is just astounding. Uh. And we know

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Speaker 1: now because we have a book that is not sold

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Speaker 1: a hundred million copies. No, no, chuck, it was a

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Speaker 1: hundred million copies by three years. That's really astounding. And

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Speaker 1: it's still in print today. But it helps standardize American

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Speaker 1: English for teachers. And then he thought, this is great,

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Speaker 1: but what I really want to do is write a dictionary.

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Speaker 1: And we're gonna take a little break and tell you

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Speaker 1: about that result right after this. Sorry geh okay. So uh,

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Speaker 1: Noah Webster is riding high on his blue backed speller

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Speaker 1: in this excess of it, and he's he's done something

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Speaker 1: he wanted to do, which was, um, help d British

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Speaker 1: eyes American school kids learning. That was a good, good

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Speaker 1: first start. But then he said, you know, yes, I

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Speaker 1: believe the children are future. Teach them well and let

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Speaker 1: them leave the way, etcetera. But I also think that

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Speaker 1: we need to get to the adults as well. We

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Speaker 1: need to just basically create a tome, a text that

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Speaker 1: is the definitive guide to American English. Because everybody's running

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Speaker 1: around here saying things a little differently, but we're still

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Speaker 1: spelling them the British way, and that has to end. Say,

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Speaker 1: I know, ah, Webster, that's right. Uh. And it ended

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Speaker 1: up being that seventy thousand word dictionary of the American Dictionary.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, And American Dictionary of the English Language is

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Speaker 1: the full title. And he said, you know the word color,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't need that. You you don't hear it. We're

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Speaker 1: wasting inc drop it. Uh. Plow you want to plow

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Speaker 1: a field, just go out in p l O W

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Speaker 1: that field. Don't p l O U g h that

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Speaker 1: field because that's a waste of time. Right. What you

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Speaker 1: want to do is go hit it with the W

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Speaker 1: the p l O W and um. I'm very grateful

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Speaker 1: to him that we we have words like draft spelled

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Speaker 1: with n F rather than a U g H or

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Speaker 1: you know, plow spelled the right way um, and color

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Speaker 1: without a U or honor without a U. It all

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Speaker 1: makes sense. And I guess it had to do with um.

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Speaker 1: The like I said, the way that people were pronouncing

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Speaker 1: words in America. We're still saying the same word, but

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Speaker 1: we were we were saying it slightly differently, So it

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Speaker 1: made sense to kind of alter the spelling. Um some

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Speaker 1: words he went after. They did not stick, though, did

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Speaker 1: they chuck? Yeah, it looks so funny on paper. I

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Speaker 1: wish they would have stuck. Because he proposed spelling tongue

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Speaker 1: t u n g, which for some reason just looks

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Speaker 1: inly dirtier. It looks it's sexual for some reason to

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Speaker 1: me and women, w O M e N he proposed

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Speaker 1: should be spelled w I M And I'm sorry w

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Speaker 1: I M M E N women. Yeah, which sends derogatory

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Speaker 1: almost like sounds dirty women, sounds like who cares kind

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Speaker 1: of spelling, you know what I'm saying. So I'm glad

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Speaker 1: that those two stayed the same. Yeah, and it just

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Speaker 1: looks very strange. Of course, had they made those changes,

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Speaker 1: we would look at tongue t o in g u

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Speaker 1: e and think that looks very like draft d r

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Speaker 1: a U g h T. We would think that looks

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Speaker 1: weird because it's just what you know growing up. But

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Speaker 1: theater is what we're here to talk about. And theater

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Speaker 1: was one of those uh I think pre Webster it

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Speaker 1: was always are in that right, Yes, that was There

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Speaker 1: was no other way to spell theater except t h

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Speaker 1: E a T R E, and Webster came along and said,

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Speaker 1: nuts to that. Yeah, swap them out, but it's this

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Speaker 1: is what an example of one that kind of half took.

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Speaker 1: There is no correct way you can use either one.

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Speaker 1: There is a notion within the world of theater that

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about the world of theater, you'd say,

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Speaker 1: are you spell it with an R E? But you

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Speaker 1: actually perform at a theater with an E R And

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Speaker 1: I think I kind of knew that. But that's not

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Speaker 1: even you know, the hard and fast rule, which I mean,

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Speaker 1: that makes sense to me, But I don't think, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: I've ever encountered anybody who actually, like any any normal person,

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Speaker 1: um like just walking around that believe that or that

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Speaker 1: held that that viewpoint of view. No, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think I've heard that. Like I said, theater with an

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Speaker 1: R E might refer to the industry of putting on

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Speaker 1: plays and shows, but I've never seen anyone, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the theater. We perform at a theater and then

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Speaker 1: spell that to different ways. Yeah, I just I've never

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Speaker 1: encountered it before. But it does make sense, and apparently

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Speaker 1: some people do kind of see see the world like that.

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Speaker 1: But for the rest of us, we're just gonna stay

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Speaker 1: muddled and confused till the end of time, swapping out

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Speaker 1: R E and E R for theater because in the end,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. Whoever you're talking to is gonna

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Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. And if you're a prescriptivist,

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Speaker 1: no descriptivists, that's that's language, that's what counts. That's right.

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Speaker 1: And I think the end result is hopefully sometime next

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Speaker 1: fall and winter you might be able to see, uh,

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Speaker 1: spend an evening with Josh and Chuck at a theatra,

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Speaker 1: right or if um, you're just kind of feeling super

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Speaker 1: American at a theater. Okay, Well, since we said theater

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Speaker 1: two different ways, I think everybody it's clear that this

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Speaker 1: is the end of short stuff, and short stuff says audios.

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Speaker 1: Stuff you should know is production of I Heart Radios.

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Speaker 1: How stuff works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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