Editors Nova Scotia and The Bookmark, an independent bookstore in downtown Halifax, have partnered to salute Dictionary Day, October 16.

Although A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 by Briton Samuel Johnson, Dictionary Day honours Noah Webster, who was born in Connecticut on this date in 1758 and is considered to have fathered the American dictionary.

Simon Winchester’s classic about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Professor and the Madman, is a fascinating story. If you haven’t already read it, you can pick up a copy at The Bookmark!