Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume IV: P-Sk » (Subsequent)

Joan Houston Hall is Senior Scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She joined the DARE staff in 1975, became Associate Editor in 1979, and was named Chief Editor in 2000.

Every page in this new volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English makes it wonderfully clear that regional expressions still flourish throughout the United States.

Depending on where you live, your conversation may include such beguiling terms as paddybass (North Carolina), pinkwink (Cape Cod), or scallyhoot (West); if you're invited to a potluck dinner, in Indiana you're likely to call it a pitch-in, while in northern Illinois it's a scramble; if your youngsters play hopscotch, they may call it potsy in Manhattan, but sky blue in Chicago.

Like the popular first three volumes of DARE, the fourth is a treasure-trove of linguistic gems, a book that invites exclamation, delight, and wonder. More than six hundred maps pinpoint where you might live if your favorite card games are sheepshead and skat; if you eat pan dulce rather than pain perdu; if you drive down a red dog road or make a purchase at a racket store; or if you look out your window and see a parka squirrel or a quill pig.

The language of our everyday lives is captured in DARE, along with expressions our grandparents used but our children will never know. Based on thousands of interviews across the country, the Dictionary of American Regional English presents our language in its infinite variety. Word lovers will delight in the wit and wisdom found in the quotations that illustrate each entry, and will prize the richness and diversity of our spoken and written culture.

William Safire - New York Times Magazine

Here is the big news in the world of lexicography: DARE IV has come out of the wordwork. The Dictionary of American Regional English--repository of the most delicious dialect sources and the most colorful evidence of the Americanization of the English language--has now covered letters P to Sk...[This] is the penultimate (one more to go) volume in the set that no library can afford to absquatulate.

DARE Staff, Volume IV

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Anatomy of a DARE Entry

The DARE Map

Pronunciation Guide

List of Abbreviations

Dictionary of American Regional English, P-Sk