Their talking point: "They quote Webster's 1828 'American' without context"

SUMMARYRECORD, the whole entry: Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), "AMERICAN, n. A native of America; originally applied to the aboriginals, or copper-colored races, found here by the Europeans; but now applied to the descendants of Europeans born in America." CROSS-EXAMINATION: the context is inside the entry itself. The dictionary writes down the word moving from the land's people to the newcomers' children, in one sentence, by the people who moved it.

PATTERNthe same move as "indigenous" in Webster's 1913, which illustrates the word with "Negroes were all transported from Africa and are not indigenous or proper natives of America" (P748). COLONIZER COMEBACK: "Words change meaning; that's normal." True, and this entry dates the change and says who it moved from and to; that's the point.

VERDICTquoted whole, the entry proves the renaming. OUR FIX: everywhere WW9 quotes it, we quote the whole entry and link the 1828 scan.

SOURCEWebster (1828), webstersdictionary1828.com, entry "American"; Webster's Revised Unabridged (1913), "indigenous."