Noah Webster

American dictionary writer, textbook author, and spelling reformer (1758--1843). Noah Webster published his first dictionary of the English language in 1806, and in 1828 published the first edition of his An American Dictionary of the English Language, whose title reveals his ambitions. Webster changed the spelling of many words in his dictionaries in an attempt to make them more phoenetic. Many of the differences between American English and other English variants evident today originated this way. See American and British English Differences.