October 16, 2022 - National Sports Day | National Dictionary Day

Welcome to October 16, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate healthy competition and a nerd with a cause. Organized sports were introduced to the world at the first Olympic Games in Ancient Greece. The first events were based on training for war and hunting—races, wrestling, jumping, and javelin throwing. This also became a way for people to hash out differences without hurting one another with weapons. Sports are cathartic and bring people together. Athletes scream and yell and try to beat their opponents, but when the game is over, they congratulate one another with a hand shake. On National Sports Day, celebrate the spirit of friendly competition! Noah Webster is best known for publishing A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language in 1806. He believed that the English spelling rules were unnecessarily complicated, and this led him to compile the American English ones. Today we take this for granted today until we run across words such as color with an extra u or center with an re ending. This task took 27 years to complete and required Webster to learn twenty six languages, including Old English, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. He also added American words such as skunk and squash that did not appear in British dictionaries. On National Dictionary Day we celebrate the spirit of a rebel with a wordy cause. I’m Anna Devere and I’m Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices