Dictionary of American Regional English: A-C v. 1 (Dictionary of American Regional English)

How do Americans really talk―what are their hometown, everyday expressions in the many regions and sections of this huge country? The __Dictionary of American Regional English__ (__DARE__), twenty years in preparation, answers these questions. It gives visible proof of the diversity―and the vitality―of American folk language, past and present. __DARE__ includes thousands of words and phrases not found in conventional dictionaries, and out-of-the-way meanings for common terms. Here are local names for familiar objects, from old cars to frying pans to dust-balls under the bed (176 names for these); for plants, animals, and critters real and imaginary; for rainstorms and heat waves; for foods, clothing, children’s games and adults’ pastimes; for illnesses and traditional remedies. Here are terms―salty, sarcastic, humorous―by which people describe each other, their physical appearance, characters, emotions, states of mind. Here are metaphors and similes galore. In Wisconsin a man whose motives are suspect “has beans up his nose.” In Georgia a conceited person is “biggity”; someone important or self-important in the Northwest is “bull of the woods.” A close friend may be “bobbasheely” (Mississippi) or an “ace boon coon” (New York City). West of the Appalachians the old saw “I wouldn’t know him from Adam” becomes “I wouldn’t know him from Adam’s off-ox” (or, in the South, “from Adam’s housecat”). These and some twelve thousand other expressions are identified and explained in the first volume of __DARE__. While __DARE__ is the work of many dedicated people, it owes its existence to Frederic G. Cassidy, who in 1963 agreed to organize the project, raise funds for it, and serve as Editor-in-Chief. Cassidy trained teams of fieldworkers and equipped them with a carefully worded questionnaire: 1,847 questions grouped in 41 broad categories ranging over most aspects of everyday life and common human experience. From 1965 to 1970 the fieldworkers conducted week-long interviews with natives of 1,002 representative communities in all fifty states. The two and a half million items gleaned from the fieldwork, coded and computer-processed, are __DARE__’s primary data base, a rich harvest of regional Americanisms current in the seventh decade of this century. Earlier collections have been drawn upon as well, notably the 40,000 expressions recorded by the American Dialect Society since 1889; and some 5,000 publications, including regional novels and diaries and small-town newspapers, have been combed for local idioms. A unique feature of the dictionary is the computer-generated maps that accompany many of the entries to show the geographical distribution of the term. The base map is schematic, distorting the areas of the states to reflect their population density. Volume I includes extensive introductory material on __DARE__ itself and on American folk speech. Its entries, from __Aaron’s rod__ to __czarnina__, cover nearly a quarter of the total __DARE__ corpus. How do Americans really talk―what are their hometown, everyday expressions in the many regions and sections of this huge country? The Dictionary of American Regional English ( DARE ), twenty years in preparation, answers these questions. It gives visible proof of the diversity―and the vitality―of American folk language, past and present. DARE includes thousands of words and phrases not found in conventional dictionaries, and out-of-the-way meanings for common terms. Here are local names for familiar objects, from old cars to frying pans to dust-balls under the bed (176 names for these); for plants, animals, and critters real and imaginary; for rainstorms and heat waves; for foods, clothing, children’s games and adults’ pastimes; for illnesses and traditional remedies. Here are terms―salty, sarcastic, humorous―by which people describe each other, their physical appearance, characters, emotions, states of mind. Here are metaphors and similes galore. In Wisconsin a man whose motives are suspect “has beans up his nose.” In Georgia a conceited person is “biggity”; someone important or self-important in the Northwest is “bull of the woods.” A close friend may be “bobbasheely” (Mississippi) or an “ace boon coon” (New York City). West of the Appalachians the old saw “I wouldn’t know him from Adam” becomes “I wouldn’t know him from Adam’s off-ox” (or, in the South, “from Adam’s housecat”). These and some twelve thousand other expressions are identified and explained in the first volume of DARE . While DARE is the work of many dedicated people, it owes its existence to Frederic G. Cassidy, who in 1963 agreed to organize the project, raise funds for it, and serve as Editor-in-Chief. Cassidy trained teams of fieldworkers and equipped them with a carefully worded questionnaire: 1,847 questions grouped in 41 broad categories ranging over most aspects of everyday life and common human experience. From 1965 to 1970 the fieldworkers conducted week-long interviews with natives of 1,002 representative communities in all fifty states. The two and a half million items gleaned from the fieldwork, coded and computer-processed, are DARE ’s primary data base, a rich harvest of regional Americanisms current in the seventh decade of this century. Earlier collections have been drawn upon as well, notably the 40,000 expressions recorded by the American Dialect Society since 1889; and some 5,000 publications, including regional novels and diaries and small-town newspapers, have been combed for local idioms. A unique feature of the dictionary is the computer-generated maps that accompany many of the entries to show the geographical distribution of the term. The base map is schematic, distorting the areas of the states to reflect their population density. Volume I includes extensive introductory material on DARE itself and on American folk speech. Its entries, from Aaron’s rod to czarnina , cover nearly a quarter of the total DARE corpus. Dip into the "Dictionary of American Regional English" and enter the rich, endlessly entertaining, ever-changing world of American speech. Learn what a Minnesota grandma is making when she fixes lefse, what a counterman in a Buffalo deli means by kimmelweck or a Hawaiian baker puts into a malassada. Find out what kids on the streets of New York are doing when they play Johnny-on-the-pony or off-the-point, what Southerners do when they use their tom walkers, what the folks in Oklahoma and Texas celebrate on Juneteenth and those in some parts of Wisconsin at a kermis. Like its enormously popular predecessors, this volume captures the language of our lives, from east to west, north to south, urban to rural, childhood to old age. Here are the terms that distinguish us, one from the other, and knit us together in one vast, colorful tapestry of imperfect, perfectly enchanting speech. More than five hundred maps show where you might be if you looked in a garden and saw moccasin flowers, indian cigars, or lady peas; if you encountered a bullfrog and cried, "jugarum!"; or came upon a hover fly and exclaimed, "newsbee!" And here, at long last, is an explanation of what the madstone and the money cat portend. Built upon an unprecedented survey of spoken English across America and bolstered by extensive historical research, the "Dictionary of American Regional English" preserves a language that lives and dies as we breathe. It will amuse and inform, delight and instruct, and keep alive the speech that we have made our own, and that has made us who we are. A Compendium Of Words, Phrases, And Local Meanings Has Been Culled From Years Of Research, Using Thousands Of Interviews With Representative American Communities. Online Index Is At Http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/18 V. 1. Introduction And A-c -- V. 2. D-h -- V. 3. I-o -- V. 4. P-sk -- V. 5. Sl-z -- V. 6. Contrastive Maps, Index To Entry Labels, Questionnaire, And Fieldwork Data. Frederic G. Cassidy, Chief Editor. Vol. 2-5: Joan Houston Hall, Associate Editor; Vol. 6 Joan Houston Hall, Chief Editor, With Luanne Von Schneidemesser, Senior Editor. Includes Bibliographical References (v. 5, P. [1147]-1244). This series captures the language spoken on America's main streets and country roads, words and phrases passed along within homes and communities, from east to west, north to south, childhood to old age. Built upon an unprecedented survey of spoken English across America and bolstered by extensive historical research, this series preserves the language with all its idioms and peculiarities. Capturing the language spoken on America's main streets and country roads—words and phrases passed along in homes and communities across the map—this series is built on an unprecedented, nation-wide survey of spoken English and bolstered by extensive historical research. DARE preserves the language with all its idioms and peculiarities.