What Happened to a Constitution for “Rational and Social Beings”?
In Noah Webster’s famous dictionary published in 1828, he defined “constitution” as “A system of fundamental principles for the government of rational and social beings.”
You cannot find a modern dictionary which even vaguely has the concept of rational and social beings linked to the definition of “constitution.”
What happened?
Forces have been dumbing-down our language.
Dumbing-down is defined as “the act of making something simpler and easier for people to understand, especially in order to make it more popular: the dumbing-down of television.” Cambridge Dictionary
You can fight back against dumbing-down!
How? One simple way is to use Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language to fully define important words, such as “constitution.” There is a free version online:
