Dictionary of American Regional English

Dictionary of American Regional English
Dictionary of American Regional English cover
Volume I (1985), Volume II (1991), Volume III (1996), Volume IV (2002), Volume V (2012), Volume VI (2013), Digital Version (2013)
CountryUnited States
LanguageAmerican English
GenreDictionary, reference work
PublisherBelknap Press of Harvard University Press

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is a record of American English as spoken in the United States, from its beginnings to the present. It differs from other dictionaries in that it does not document the standard language used throughout the country. Instead, it contains regional and folk speech, those words, phrases, and pronunciations that vary from one part of the country to another, or that are learned from family and friends rather than from teachers and books. For DARE, a "region" may be as small as a city or part of a city, or as large as most (but not all) of the country.[1] Humanities magazine has described it as "a bold synthesis of linguistic atlas and historical dictionary",[2] and William Safire called it "the most exciting new linguistic project in the twentieth century".[3]

The Dictionary is based both on face-to-face interviews with 2,777 people carried out in 1,002 communities across the country between 1965 and 1970, and on a large collection of print and (recently) electronic materials, including diaries, letters, novels, histories, biographies, government documents, and newspapers.[4] These sources are cited in individual entries to illustrate how the words have been used from the 17th century through the beginning of the 21st century. Entries may include pronunciations, variant forms, etymologies, and statements about regional and social distributions of words and forms.

Five volumes of text were published by Harvard University Press between 1985 and 2012: Volume I (A–C), with Frederic G. Cassidy serving as Chief Editor, appeared in 1985; Volume II (D–H), edited by Cassidy and Associate Editor Joan Houston Hall, was published in 1991; Volume III (I–O), by Cassidy and Hall, came out in 1996; Volume IV (P–Sk), by Hall, who succeeded Cassidy as Chief Editor upon his death, appeared in 2002; and Volume V (Sl–Z), with Hall as editor, finished the set in 2012. A sixth volume, subtitled "Contrastive Maps, Index to Entry Labels, Questionnaire, and Fieldwork Data," edited by Hall with Luanne von Schneidemesser serving as Senior Editor, was published early in 2013. Late that same year, the digital version was launched.

DARE chronicles the language of the American people. It is used by teachers, librarians, researchers, physicians, forensic linguists, journalists, historians, and playwrights.

  1. ^ Frederic G. Cassidy, ed. (1985). Dictionary of American Regional English. Vol. I. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. xvi.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference wordsofam was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Safire, William (2008). Safire's Political Dictionary. Oxford University Press. p. xxii. ISBN 9780195343342.
  4. ^ Ed. Frederic G. Cassidy. Dictionary of American Regional English, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Volume I, 1985, p. xx.