SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Just read this neat articles about the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), which I had never heard of before.

Very interesting! They have been working on it since the 70's and are apparently almost to letter Z.

Here's the link to the entire article: http://www.good.is/?p=16060&GT1=4...

""Soda, Pop, or Coke? America’s First Dictionary of Dialects
Posted by: Mark Peters on March 6, 2009 at 8:00 am

The Dictionary of American Regional English, a comprehensive lexicon of local language quirks, nears completion

If you’re living in a snowpocalyptic wasteland like the ice planet Hoth, Buffalo, New York, or much of the United States lately, you’ve probably shoveled some snow onto the berm.

Berm?

Oh, excuse me, depending on where you live, you may know that strip of grass between the sidewalk and street by another name, such as boulevard, devil strip, grass plot, neutral ground, parking strip, parkway, terrace, tree belt, or tree lawn.

The language of grass strips is just one of thousands of areas of American life documented in the Dictionary of American Regional English, one of the oldest and most ambitious projects in the history of American lexicography. Dedicated to capturing all terms that are not part of standard English nationwide, DARE dates from the 1960s and will finally be fully published in 2010 (though its eventual digitization promises to enrich and expand the dictionary indefinitely). ..."

Besides the funny definitions, the other line that made me laugh out loud was this: "For a word-lover like myself, DARE is a kind of unholy cross between crack, the Bacon Explosion, and a rainbow made of chocolate." (Then I had to go look up the Bacon Explosion = )

I think I heard a blip on NPR once about this project. I always did love having the pop or soda debate at conferences. It's also interesting to hear the different accents throughout the country. There are more than just the Southern, Midwest, New York, and Boston accents, for sure. I lived in central Pennsylvania for a while, and their English encorporates a lot of "Pennsylvania Dutch" into the lexicon and accents.

If you ever listen to NPR and are interested in words, phrases, and jargon, check out A Way with Words (in Wisconsin, on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m.). Website is http://www.waywordradio.org/

Speaking of accents my first French teacher learned French from an interesting source. Her French teacher was originally from France, moved to the Boston area, then moved to the south before coming out to the midwest.

Oh how cool. This is right up my alley. :) I'm such a language dork...