joy magnetism: Those are some biiiiig shoes...




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Friday, August 12, 2011

Those are some biiiiig shoes...

Magnet #1267 - John Quincy Adams

Our sixth president had a lot of living up to, to do, methinks. I mean, when your pops is like the 2nd president ever, of the United States, yeah, those are some big shoes to fill.

But, John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) did it, serving as the 8th U.S. Secretary of State, US Ambassador to the UK, Russia, Prussia and the Netherlands, US House Representative from 3 different districts, and as US Senator from Massachusetts.

Whew.

Meanwhile, I just picked this magnet because the other day, I saw an @PeterSokolowski video that finally explains (at least for me) why we Americans have our own spellings that differ from the original English spellings.

Turns out it was Noah Webster of Merriam-Webster who gave America our own language. I won't lie, even after having spent a few years editing and converting British spelling to American spelling in romance and science-fiction books, I hadn't a clue about Webster's contribution.

Take a look:


Why the tie back to JQ? Only because it was at the Adamses library that I saw one of the original first editions of Merriam-Webster, and man I would have loved to rifle through that tome.

Yes. I'm a dork at heart. What? You couldn't tell after 1,267 magnets?

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