DARE (Dictionary of American Regional English) -- it's finally done?

On to Z!” reads the tombstone of Frederic Cassidy, the first editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). He started the project in 1962, and the dictionary’s last words (Sl-Z) will finally be published this month.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Snollygosters-Wampus-Toe-Socials-and-Other-Words-from-the-Dictionary-of-American-Regional-English.html#ixzz1qEIJDLAp

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Snollygosters-Wampus-Toe-Socials-and-Other-Words-from-the-Dictionary-of-American-Regional-English.html#ixzz1qDtyTcaq

tl;dr

Thanks to DARE, we will always know that a “gospel bird” once meant a chicken, “long sugar” was molasses, a “toad-strangler” (a.k.a. “duck-drownder,” “belly-washer” or “cob-floater”) was a heavy rainstorm and “Old Huldy” was the sun.

The dictionary includes some 60,000 entries, based in part on thousands of interviews conducted from Hawaii to remotest Maine. Researchers asked locals a series of 1,600 vocabulary-prompting questions. They flashed pictures of indigenous flora and fauna and got their subjects to jib-jab, trade chin music or just plain chat. Editors at the University of Wisconsin at Madison scoured newspapers, diaries, billboards, poetry collections and menus. Each entry notes where and when a word seems to have surfaced and when it fell out of favor.

From their website: http://dare.wisc.edu/

March 1 news: Things are hopping! Harvard University Press just announced that for the entire month of March they're offering not just volume V but all DARE volumes at 20% off, including free shipping for orders in the U.S.and Canada. This should help readers fill out their sets.

And if you want matching dust jackets for the volumes you already have, on the bottom of this HUP webpage, they say: "Harvard University Press is happy to offer new dust jackets to longtime DARE devotees who would like their older volumes to match the updated look of Volume V. Please contact us for details." You can also see a video of Joan Houston Hall and Erin McKean discussing DARE.

Latest news, as of Feb. 21, 2012: The DARE staff is excited to see Volume V in print! You can buy it at bookstores or from HUP. This covers entries for the remainder of the alphabet, Sl- through Z, plus the bibliography for all five volumes.

To celebrate the completion of the text in Volume V, UW Communications has created a fantastic website about DARE, with words used in each state, links to media stories on DARE, audio and video clips, and more -- take a look!

And volume VI is off to the publisher tomorrow! This includes well over 1,300 maps shown by concept (e.g. a heavy rain, house siding, a small paper bag, fried cornbread, the green leaves on a strawberry, an old or broken-down car, the common worm used as bait, a little extra from a seller, names for a grandmother or -father, sick ____ one's stomach, a bad dive that lands flat, meaner than ____, one's signature, all gone, the wrong way around, and much more); maps shown by social categories (age, race, sex, education, community type); and an index to the labels in the entries for volumes I through V.

On soliciting information and the instrument used:

The DARE questionnaire included a total of 1,847 questions; some that proved not to be fruitful in the early interviews were dropped, with others being added in their place. The questionnaire aimed to elicit responses about the everyday activities in Americans' lives. It includes 41 sections, starting with the neutral subjects of time and weather and moving to more personal subjects such as religion and health. Also included are the questions used in the early questionnaire only. The text of each question is included in the front matter to Volume I, and the quotations in the text of the Dictionary usually include full or abbreviated versions of each question; in cases where only the question number is cited, a reader can refer to the front matter.

also, lol

glad this exists. any dictionary that does not include "bohunkus" is not a real dictionary imo.

is that like a stud muffin or a sleazebag?

Hey, wampus gets namechecked!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Smallcatfield.jpg

Thought it was just Conway.

bohunkus means butt. it is also commonly employed as a nickname/term of affection. at least by my grandfather.

i have a special fondness for the devilstrip, myself.

Here's a better look at it IRL.

http://www.dailyyonder.com/files/u2/WampusConway.jpg

A six legged lioness, you guys!

hi dere
(this is the one the smithsonian article used)
http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/Perception-Language-631.jpg

today i have learned, just so far:

bohunkus
wampus

long live the art of jib-jab collection! hooray!

$430 for all five volumes... not bad.

I knew someone else would be excited about the sale!

Seriously thinking about it, since, you know, life long dream and all...

it will make my shelves go all cattywampus from the weight, however.

I have literally nowhere to put them ;_;

Every time I've seen a partial collection in a bookstore, I've thought about it...then thought about buying just one as a special gift to myself, but then find myself totally unable to choose which one. So I go home without any DARE volumes. Repeat.Repeat.Repeat.Repeat.

It sucks that it is available only in print at the moment, a dictionary like this would get a lot more usage if it was available online.

DARE: To keep kids off California cornflakes and Johnson grass.

DARE scratches the same itch as the 5 volume collection of Child ballads that I have, except that's the work of one person's collection. This is a team of people collecting for the last, oh, 50 years. It's just such a massive piece of work! It's like Mt. Rushmore but with regional dialects.

I think linguists can get access to it for research purposes, but laypeople have to be satisfied to let the LINGUISTS handle the DATA, ahem.

Top shelf stuff! Former library copies.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7114/7017647259_fef52c330d.jpg

I seriously have no idea where I would even put a full DARE set but maybe I could put it inside a table or trunk or something?!

Which is to say afaik it's a genuine reference work, and not meant for the general public to use beyond a visit to the library, which probably shelled out for a copy. I'm sure there's a huge debate to be had about the value of that gatekeeper system, but I'm just here to celebrate the existence of this reference work!

Sample entry (please note the level of detail)

ring-a-levio n  [ring (in ref to the enclosure in which captured players are confined) + varr of relievo]
1 also ring-a-lario, ring releavo, and varr: A team hiding or chasing game in which players who have been caught must remain in a designated area until released by a teammate. chiefly NYC Also called release, relievo Cf prisoner’s base1891 Jrl. Amer. Folkl. 224 Brooklyn NYC, Ring relievo. The two best runners “count out” to see which shall have the first choice, and this done, these two alternately choose a boy for his side until all are chosen. A course is then determined on, and one side is given a start, which, if the course is around a city block, is usually a quarter of the way round. The start given, the chase commences, and when one of the pursued is captured, he is brought back to the starting-place, where he is placed within a ring marked with chalk or coal upon the pavement. If he succeeds in pulling in one of his opponents while they are putting him in the ring, he becomes free. Or one of his own men will watch his chance to relieve him by running and putting one foot in the ring. The game continues until all players of the side that had the start are made captives.  1901 DN 2.146 Brooklyn NYC, Ring alevio. . . Name of a game; same as run, sheep, run.  1909 (1923) Bancroft Games 166, Ring-a-lievio. . . This is a form of Hide and Seek in opposing parties. Players who are caught are prisoners. . . The method of capture . . differs from that in some forms of Hide and Seek.  1957 Sat. Eve. Post Letters NYC, Ring-a-leave-ee-o: a game which I believe is also known as Prisoner’s Base; NYC (as of c1925), Ring-a-levio (a kind of tag game); NYC (as of c1948), Ring-a-leevio; Boston MA (as of c1918), Ring-releavo—As I recall, the game went something like this—one side was given a specific time to hide or to get some distance away from a ring marked into the earth. . . After the first side . . departed, the second looked for them and, when caught, the captured were brought back and placed within the confines of the ring. One boy would be placed on guard over the prisoners to prevent their being releaved [sic]. They could be releaved by one member of their team simply approaching the ring unnoticed and tagging or touching a prisoner.  1968–70 DARE (Qu. EE33, . . Outdoor games . . that children play) Infs NY60, 86, 119, Ring-a-levio; NY64, Ring-a-levio—like hide-and-seek, only you tag people; (Qu. EE12, Games in which one captain hides his team and the other team tries to find it) Infs NY37, 42, 44, 241, Ring-a-levio; NY250, Ring-a-lario.  1970 DARE FW Addit ceNC, Ring-a-lee-bo [ˌrɪŋəˈlibo]—a tag game.  1975 Ferretti Gt. Amer. Book Sidewalk Games 142 NYC, Ring-a-levio. . . In this game (also known as Ring-O-Levio, Ringelevio, Ringalario, Ring-O-Leary-O, and Ringoleavo), one team of players hunts, captures, and jails the other team, keeping members of the hunted team imprisoned despite attempts to free them. . . When caught, a player must be held firmly as the Hunter shouts, “Ring-a-levio, 1, 2, 3!” . . A player who is captured can be freed in several ways. . . When all members of one team are caught by the other team—truly a long process, with some chases not completed for days—then the Hunters become the Hunted. 1977 NY Times (NY) 6 July 29, It was a game as valid to him and his friends as stoop-ball, kick the can, ring-a-lievio, red rover and salugi were to an earlier generation.  1979 Patrick Pope Greenwich Village 257 NYC, On a sweltering August night when he was twelve, during a game of ring-a-levio on Carmine Street, he had charged the den and been kicked under the chin in the pileup. 1982 DARE File Manhattan NYC, Ring-o-levio. You’re either on the side that’s “it” or the side that’s not “it”. It’s usually played on concrete. The purpose of the game is to capture players and hold them down long enough to yell “Ring-o-levio-1-2-3 ring-o-levio-1-2-3 ring-o-levio-1-2-3.”
2 as ring-a-leavo; By ext: see quot. [Prob with pun on leave] Cf snipe hunt1966 DARE File Boston MA, Ring-a-leavo . . a children’s game. Hide and seek game played under arc light. Stranger on block would be left hiding eyes at lamppost (a la snipe hunt).

Full list of sample entries (100 of them)
http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/163

Here's one you can use: flug

flug n  Also sp phlug Dust or lint that collects in pockets, under beds, and in similar places; also fig.1934 Wylie Finnley Wren 301 neNJ, The ones we talked about. Where are they now? What are they doing? Bitter fragments on the Lethe. Chips and gobbets. Human flug.  1952 We’re Not Married [Movie] (DAS at phlug), Did you drop some flug in my cup? 1952 San Francisco Examiner (CA) 4 Dec 33/1, [Herb Caen’s column, subtitle:] Pocketful of flug.  1970 DARE File, Flug [flʌ:g]—dust curls under furniture. Heard from “Southern people” in California.  1973 San Francisco Chronicle (CA) 19 Nov 29/1 [Herb Caen’s column], In answer to questions from a few mildly interested readers, “phlug” is the stuff that collects in the pockets of aging suits and overcoats.  1980 DARE File NYC (as of 1930s), As for phlug, or flug, in high school and college this was (specifically) the lint that collected in the navel.  1982 Smithsonian Letters KS, A friend from Kansas calls the dust rolls “flug.”

This thread is uncorking an aspect of my nerdery I haven't let breathe in years. Trying to think of what I could do for a quick $430...

Kinda sorta along the same lines...has anyone here ever found a good compilation of handclap/jumprope rhymes?

Be honest with yourself, this will be way more enriching than a 64GB iPhone 4S.

I am so happy to know I am among my own people, the flugkeepers.

What do I expect to do with it, other than lose hours and hours and hours of time and possibly hurt myself lugging it from one place to another? Would it be crazy to buy this for myself for my birthday?!

Free shipping through the end of March...

I've been carrying this handsome volume from one apartment to another for years, what's another volume or six?!
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yqLQO2E%2BL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

dude just go for it, you will treasure it forever and someday you will have a nice office bookshelf to put it on.

then you can write the American Ulysses or something.

Thanks to DARE, we will always know that a “gospel bird” once meant a chicken, “long sugar” was molasses, a “toad-strangler” (a.k.a. “duck-drownder,” “belly-washer” or “cob-floater”) was a heavy rainstorm and “Old Huldy” was the sun.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W8u0yRUB8nk/TZiF8Ij3irI/AAAAAAAAAO4/vR8ARnkrM0E/s320/abraham.gif

haaa

I wonder if bohunkus is Scottish in origin. Sounds a lot like bahookie.

If it's from the South, that would be quite likely!
Where did your gpa grow up, Crut?

I cannot look at this thread anymore or I will make a terrible budgeting decision.

I know, me too. I have been told that I should sleep on it, so let's just revisit this idea tomorrow, ok? :)

I will note that prices for individual used volumes seem to be as HIGH as they have always been: > $100 generally.

I would kinda love to have physical copies of these, but will wait for the online version. I guess it'll be behind a paywall?

There was a really sweet, cool old lady who was a columnist at the Tupelo paper for decades, whose hobby was tracking down and tracing the etymology of southernisms. I'm sorry she didn't live to see the completion of this.

I guess it'll be behind a paywall?

I'm guessing it would be set up in an online database similar to the OED. These days I'm used to a print and online form of a book being released around the same time so I was hoping there would at least be some information available on that. The print format would be nice to have, but the depressing reality is that most of our students will not use print reference sources because they're so used to having access to information online.

I think I'm able to resist now, but it doesn't feel good.

my granddaddy was born & raised in Georgia, as was his grandfather before him and his grandfather before him

Maybe each ilxor should buy one volume, and we can have a group repository...

Let's have ads for unregistered visitors and use the proceeds to buy cool shit like this.

Now you're talking real problem-solving, a plan we can pungle up/down

pungle v  Also pongal, pungale Also with down, up [Span póngale put it down] chiefly West To shell out; to plunk down (money); to pay up; also fig.1851 Alta Californian 19 July (DA), A singular genius . . was ‘pongaling down’ huge piles of gold at a monte table.  1857 San Francisco Call (CA) 6 Jan. 2/2 (OED2), ‘Pungale down, gentlemen; come, pungale’, as the vingt-et-un lady used to say. 1867 Terr. Enterprise (Virginia, Nev.) 23 Feb. 3/3 (DA), All night the clouds pungled their fleecy treasure. 1877 Wright Big Bonanza 339, They have kicked the bully Miner; they have ducked him in the ditch, but they can’t make him pungle. 1884 Twain Huck. Finn 41, “I hain’t got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he’ll tell you the same.” “All right. I’ll ask him; and I’ll make him pungle, too, or I’ll know the reason why.” 1910 E.S. Field Sapphire Bracelet xii.141 (OED2), I’ll have him arrested, and then make him pungle up something handsome before I’ll agree not to appear against him.  1967–68 DARE (Qu. U8b, . . “I paid ten dollars for it.”) Infs CA36, OR4, Pungled up; (Qu. U18, If you force somebody to pay money that he owes you, but that he did not want to pay . . “I finally made him _____.”) Infs CA15, 36, 87, OR4, Pungle up.  1968 DARE FW Addit CA62, Pungle—“Oh, boy, look at that stuff pungle”—of soil crumbling to reveal rich ore.  1975 Gores Hammett 130 San Francisco CA, Hammett had coffee and pungled up the required fifty cents.  1989 DARE File OR, I’ll contact Belknap Press about a review copy of Volume II, but of course if they can’t provide one, I’ll pungle up the funds to acquire it.

Did anyone give in to the sale? I didn't. Feel ok about it.

"pungle up" is familiar to me. I have used it in the past.

I forgot to bump this a while ago when I heard someone actually say bohunkus.

oh spooky it found Arlington, VA. Apparently my dialect isn't totally generic!

I'm from Scotland and got Yonkers, New York, and Honolulu.

using "yous" might have something to do with new york

Most similar to Jackson, MS; St. Louis, MO; and Overland Park, KS (ding ding ding) (Though sort of annoyed they picked Overland Park as a representative city of all places).
I'm definitely not from Worcester, MA.

oh spooky it found Arlington, VA. Apparently my dialect isn't totally generic!

― the slow death of America's rich pastoral heritage (silby), Monday, December 23, 2013 9:47 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What Do Y’All, Yinz, and Yix Call Stretchy Office Supplies?
I loled.

I got Newark, Fort Lauderdale and Pembroke Pines :D

xpost dying at that new yorker list

mjolnir went down to georgia hahahah

way better than the orig

I'm from Scotland and got Yonkers, New York, and Honolulu.

So am I and I got Long Beach, Knxville... and Honolulu!

I got Des Moines, Omaha, and Grand Rapids

bullseye

btw the least similar is, basically, Michigan. The South is strong for me, but then we do call our mothers Mammy where I come from (well some of us do) (xp)

lmao @ "Cloud-isn't"

the original poster must be offended by 'devil's strip' not being among possible answers!

― mookieproof,

Also it's devilstrip! At least in my fam it is.

― mambo jumbo (La Lechera),

What is a devil's strip?

it's the area that is owned by neither the landowner or the city -- it's the devil's strip. the devilstrip.
some people call it a tree lawn. some people have no name for it.

Ah I see. I have no word for it.

LL, can we split the cost and share custody of the DARE? Regional American English is my obsession.

that would be awesome -- you mean the online version or the handsome volumes?

Weird, on that NYT quiz I got Detroit, Grand Rapids, Toledo. I lived in the northern Lower Peninsula for 3 years in high school, but I learned to talk in western Colorado and eastern Oregon.

What was difficult about that quiz is that have *gut* answers and answers for preferred words. E.g., my gut says "tennis shoes" but I actually say "sneakers." Same with sod/pop and semi/tractor-trailer.

And I only say "cot" and "caught" differently b/c I got teased about saying them the same when I moved to North Carolina in 1993 - my pronunciation of cot/caught, Don/Dawn is still conscious and deliberate.

xp handsome volumes of course!

I guess the quiz is not meant to divine where you are from, just to determine which region's speech is most similar to your current speech.

I saw one volume for sale at an antiquarian book fair the other weekend, but it was only about $20 cheaper than a new copy and pretty beat up.

exactly - and there's also a strong possibility for error when people self-report (rather than using data about what people actually say/a corpus)

i was chided by a friend for eye-rolling over people's incredulity re that quiz, and i get that not everyone understands linguistics or whatever, but my eye rolling is NOTHING compared to the florid indignance/indignation in full display about which pronunciation of [word x] is "correct" when there is only one answer: regional variants. not surprisingly, the us educational system does not do a very good job of explaining language and how it works.

xp - did you look at it? more appropriately, how long did you look at it before you decided not to buy it?

bah, the area between the sidewalk and the street is called the parking although I have no idea why

btw the landowner does own it

depends on where you live!

good point

heh, I could only look at it for about fifteen minutes (it was the I-O volume) and I knew I wouldn't buy it because I didn't have any money with me!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/opinion/sunday/the-sound-of-philadelphia-fades-out.html?_r=0

I looked up the Philly Tawk guy on youtube and he's good but just..one of the many different kinds of Philly regional accents?

Haven't found a satisafactory NEAST accent on Youtube yet

Crazy how, in looking at the infographic I could immediately hear all of that said in my head. HAha

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2014/04/pennsylvania_dialects_from_pittsburghese_to_philadelphia_speak_the_keystone.html

http://gawker.com/americas-ugliest-accent-round-one-boston-baltimore-1637730517

"america" east of the mississippi, cool

n/m gawker.com

curious what the representative "Atlanta accent" will be

American accents are changing and and flattening. The brash Philadelphia accent, the distinct Texas twang, and even the ballsy New York squawk could soon disappear, mating with blander vocal patterns in neighboring regions.

This is some seriously dumb bullshit.

Otm
So sick of amateur linguistic analysis

On the subject, have you read English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States by Rosa Lippi-Green? It looks pretty interesting but is $37 used.

No but maybe I can use prof dev $$?! I taught my students about the IPA a few weeks ago and they felt like they had gained superpowers. It was awesome.

request for assistance!
does anyone here have access to the DARE to look something up for me?
i'm trying to find the meaning of a term purportedly used on a death certificate. mid-1930s New Jersey.
cause of death: "the rock"
(please note: i have not seen the actual death certificate, this is what i was told was on it)

I have access via my institution... not seeing anything under "rock" that seems plausible as a cause of death? Can probably email you a PDF?

hmm... one possible hit, "rock on the chest" meaning "any of several pulmonary diseases caused by the inhalation of silica dust" but that's from the Western US?

I believe you! My quest continues. Where else should I look for this information?
Respiratory/circulatory failure would make sense. I was half hoping it'd be an exciting euphemism for something scandalous.

I'll take a pdf though, if it's no trouble. My mom will like to know I've been looking for the real reason her grandfather died long before she could meet him.

Hunterdon County, Delaware Township?

Idk exactly where in NJ, sadly

alternate hypothesis: if the death certificate is handwritten it could be something like shock or croup, etc. hold for PDF of various "rock" info from DARE!

unrelated but fun:

rock 1930 Woofter Black Yeomanry 221 seSC, "Although dancing is frowned on by the church, the few 'ungodly' have occasional dances at private homes or lodge halls. These are accurately termed 'rocks.'"

do you know what his occupation was?

Xp Interesting! I like that the rock has both religious and heathen interpretations.

No, idk for sure but I think he owned a shoe repair business?

That could have been my grandpa's dad rather than my grandma's, I can't remember.

Did a search for DARE survey results containing the word "rock" (any subject) and got 412 responses, and paging through them is just killing me, it's absolute poetry

Always!! Long live the DARE.

RIP DARE :(
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-do-fuzzywogs-toad-stranglers-and-devilstrips-have-in-common-a-dying-dictionary-1510000395?mod=e2tw

the devilstrip will never die

nooooooooooooooo

LL, was talking about archaic disease terms at work, and the term "rock fever" came up, an early 20th-century term for brucellosis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brucellosis