Regional Dialect

“Dialect words are those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.” – Thomas Hardy

When I read The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, I learned that putting together a dictionary was no easy task. I recently read about another equally daunting project—Dictionary of American Regional English, also known as DARE.

I thought, aha, this is a book I’d like to own! Well, it’s not a book. DARE is books. And the last volume, S to Z, is not even out yet. According to an article on npr.org, “Regional Dictionary Tracks The Funny Things We Say,” the final project will be released next year.

The article went on to say that the man who started the project in the 1950s, linguist Frederic Cassidy, passed away before the end of the project. His tombstone reads, “On to Z!”

Also according to the article, Mr. Cassidy “…sent field workers out across the country in "word wagons" to interview people. Cassidy's catalogers talked to nearly 3,000 people over six years, making recordings along the way in order to capture pronunciations.”

“The DARE also helps capture obscure expressions before they fade away. Stephanie Grayson, the founder of CorporateSpeechTrainer.com, says in some ways, American language is becoming more uniform, and television and the Internet are giving us all a common vocabulary.

"We're living in a world of 140 characters or less on Twitter," Grayson says.

The article is not only interesting, it's also full of examples, including this one used by President Clinton at a news conference. “He doesn't know me from Adam's off ox." It means he doesn’t know me at all. I've heard of doesn't know me from Adam but never with the off ox added and I've lived in the South.

The use of ‘devil’s strip’ in a ransom note helped capture a kidnapper. Evidently the term is used only in a tiny section of Ohio. It means the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street.

Other terms I’d never heard of and found fascinating were:
mulligrubs (n) A condition of despondency or ill temper; a vague or imaginary unwellness. (Usage: scattered, but especially the South)
nebby (adj) Snoopy, inquisitive. (Usage: chiefly Pennsylvania)
pungle (v) To shell out; to plunk down (money); to pay up. (Usage: chiefly West)
rantum scoot (n) An outing with no definite destination (Usage: scattered)
say-so (n) An ice-cream cone. (Usage: scattered)

By the way, if you are interested in owning the four volumes currently available, you’ll find them on Amazon. Be prepared to pay over $400.00 though.

Do you or your characters use regional dialect? Do you have a favorite word or phrase that you only hear in a certain section of the country?

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Thomas Hardy, dialect, DARE, Cassidy, Amazon, Clinton, >, Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester,

The Changing Dictionary

“Dictionaries are always fun, but not always reassuring.” – M.F.K. Fisher

According to a recent article, "Twitter and Gourmet Sex: They’re in the Dictionary Now," on time.com, the 30th Anniversary of the Collins English Dictionary was published on September 3, with over 260 new entries.

“To qualify for inclusion in the esteemed lexicon, a word had to have, over the past two years, six quality citations in Collins' digital corpus, a computerized database that scans 2.5 billion words across a number of print and online resources.”

Among the new words this year, I picked out a few of my favorites:

carborexics - those obsessed with reducing their carbon footprint
ecotarian - a person who only eats food that has been produced in an environmentally friendly manner
frugalista - a person who tries to stay fashionably dressed on a budget
glamping - glamorous camping
ponzimonium - financial turmoil in the wake of uncovering Ponzi schemes

I guess because I'm such a fuddy-duddy (is that still a word?), I don’t believe that OMG (oh my god), WTF (what the f__) are words. However, they have been included in the dictionary along with the sounds of hmm, heh and mwah (exaggerated kiss). According to Duncan Black, editor of the dictionary, “They’re part of the language of microblogging.”

Of course, to add new words, they first had to make room by deleting others.
Another article, "24 Words the CED Wants to Exuviate (Shed)," also on time.com, lists some of the words that may have been cut. Had I know they were words to begin with, I may have used them and saved their jobs. Now I guess it’s too late. It’s too bad, because some of them seem like such good words. For instance:

compossible - possible in coexistence with something else
embrangle - to confuse
fubsy - squat
malison - a curse
muliebrity - the condition of being a woman
niddering - cowardly
skirr - a whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight

On a different topic, I hope everyone is enjoying their long Labor Day weekend. Here’s a little trivia about the day to impress those around you. The first Labor Day observance was in New York City on September 5, 1882. By 1884 other cities observed the holiday honoring working people and in 1894 it became a Federal Holiday.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Nancy Sharpe from Realms of Thought on Fantasy, Writing & Children’s Literature for the One Lovely Blog Award. Her blog is always interesting and fun to read and I’m honored to have received this from her. Though I know there are lots of deserving blogs, many of the sites I frequent have already received this award or I’ve already passed another award to them recently. In other words I’m at a loss of who to pass this along to. I guess this is a sign I need to get busy and explore more blogs. I hope I’ll be forgiven for keeping this one for myself – at least for a while. I also hope you’ll visit Nancy’s blog and the other blogs she’s passed awards on to.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tags: Fisher, Dictionary, One Lovely Blog Award, Nancy Sharpe, Labor Day,