Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
Isn't that an "abecedarian"?
And apparently it can also be an "a-b-c-darian" but the dashes are important.
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There seem to be a few variations of the word, according to Google/Big Brother Watching. Let's see... *google searching* Hmm, not many.
Abcedarian itself is an Old World word, according to Jeffrey Kacirk, author of The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten. I don't know the origin of the word, unfortunately. The book doesn't provide enough details, just definitions and references. *looking at the bibliography* The references for this particular entry are A Complete Dictionary of the English Language by Thomas Sheridan (published in London, 1790) and The Century Cyclopedia and Dictionary by William Whitney (published in New York, 1889).
*searching a bit more* Hmm, according to
en.wikipedia.org,
Quote:
A-B-C-darians, ABC-darians, or abecedarians were the youngest students (then called scholars) in the typical one-room school of 19th-century America, so-called because they were just learning their "a-b-cs". It could also refer to someone teaching the alphabet.[1]
Early references
In his autobiographical reminiscences on his school days, Warren Burton recounted that he "was three years and a half old when I first entered the Old School-house as an abecedarian".[2] Many young children were simply sent along with other siblings in order to get them out of their mothers' way.[3] Noah Webster's early school dictionary contains the following entry for abecedarian: A-be-ce-da'-ri-an, n. One who teaches or is learning the alphabet.[4]
Front row seats
In the district schools of the early 19th century, the youngest scholars were seated on the front benches in a room that typically had floors that sloped up from the center on three sides like a small amphitheater. The entrance door(s) and the teacher's desk were located on the unsloped side. The desks accommodated two or more scholars and were arranged up the ramps around a center space, the front of each desk providing the seat for the desk before it, with the front rows consisting only of the benches attached to the desks of the second row where the youngest children sat.[5] Samuel Griswold Goodrich (a.k.a. "Peter Parley") attended a district school around 1810 in which "The larger scholars were ranged on the outer sides, at the desks; the smaller fry of a-b-c-darians were seated in the center".[6] Warren Burton also noted that "next to the spelling floor, were low, narrow seats for abecedarians and others near that rank. In general, the older the scholar the further from the front was his location".[2]
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So, according to the archaic definition of
scholar, we're all scholars 'cause we literate? lol