THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY MARCH 24, 2009
NEWS
7A
LANGUAGE
A sandwich by any other name is in this dictionary
Final volume of regional dictionary nears completion
Associated Press
BY RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - If you don't know a stone toter from Adam's off
what a grinder shop sells, the Dictionary of American Regional English is for you.
WILLIAM SAFIRE Columnist for The New York Times Magazine
"It shows the richness and diversity of our language."
The collection of regional words and phrases is beloved by linguists and authors
and used as a reference in professions as diverse as acting and police work. And now, after five decades of wide-ranging research that sometimes got word-gatherers run out of suspicious small towns, the job is almost finished.
The dictionary team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is nearing completion of the final volume, covering "S" to "Z." A new federal grant will help the volume get published next year, joining the first four volumes already in print.
The dictionary chronicles words and phrases used in distinct regions. Maps show where a submarine sandwich might be called a hero or grinder, or where a potluck
"It will be a huge milestone," said editor loan Houston Hall.
— as in a potluck dinner or supper — might be called a pitch-in (Indiana) or a scramble (northern Illinois).
It's how Americans do talk, not how they should talk.
scholarly activities and people will be reading it for a century learning about the roots of the American language," said William Safire, who frequently cites the dictionary
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Editor of The Dictionary of American Regional English Joan Houston Hall is seen in her office in Madison, Wis. The Dictionary of American Regional English, founded by English professor Frederic Cassidy, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is nearing completion of its final volume of text covering "S" to "Z". A new federal grant will help the volume get published next year and allow the dictionary that linguists consider a national treasure to prepare to go online.
"It's one of the great American
in his "On Language"
column in The New
York Times Magazine.
"It shows the richness
and diversity of our
language."
Doctors have used it to communicate with patients and investigators have referred to it in efforts to identify criminals
including the Unabomber. Dialect coaches in Hollywood and on Broadway have used the dictionary's audio recordings of regional speakers to train actors.
Author Tom Wolfe has called the dictionary "my favorite reading."
chased out of a few Southern towns. The field work alone took five years and collected 2.5 million different words and phrases.
In awarding the two-year, $295,000 grant that will get the final volume into print, National Science Foundation reviewers called the dictionary "one of the most visible public faces of linguistics," and a "national treasure."
The concept dates to 1889, when the American Dialect Society was formed. But the project did not start in earnest until 1965, when English professor Frederic Cassidy dispatched workers to 1,000 carefully chosen U.S. communities to interview residents and make audio recordings of their speeches.
Since then, linguists have painstakingly researched the words using print materials to decide which should be included. The dictionary project has about a dozen workers and a $750,000 annual budget.
Workers often slept in "word wagons" — vans emblazoned with the UW logo — and even were
Cassidy died in 2000, still looking toward publication of the final volume. His tombstone reads: "On to Z!"
Draft entries for the final volume are still being reviewed. During a recent visit to their offices at UW-Madison's English department, one was tracing the history of the word "stone tooter," a type of fish found in parts of the eastern U.S.
Hall, who has worked at the dictionary since 1975 and been editor since 2000, said the complete series of five volumes published by Harvard University Press will contain about 75,000 entries.
After the final volume is pub
ished, the next phase of the project will be to put the dictionary online. Hall envisions an online edition that will be updated constantly.
Hall said her all-time favorite word is bobbasheeely.
comes from the language of the
Choctaw tribes.
Two people interviewed in
used in Gulf Coast states as a noun meaning a good friend or a verb to hang around with a friend. It
National Science Foundation reviewers called the dictionary "one of the most visible public faces of linguistics" and a national treasure."
interviewed in Texas and Alabama in the 1960s used the word. Further digging revealed that Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner had once used it in a novel, and it was used in the early 19th century by a colleague of former vice president and duelist Aaron Burr.
The dictionary has occasionally been put to serious use.
Forensic linguist Roger Shuy said he occasionally referred to the dictionary when he studied the Unabomber's writings in the 1990s for clues to the writer's identity. His profile didn't help catch Ted Kaczynski, but it turned out to be pretty accurate: He guessed the Unabomber had a doctorate, grew up near Chicago and was older than some investigators initially believed.
Hall said she has uncovered flaws in a test routinely given to diagnose a brain abnormality in which people have difficulty coming up with words for everyday items. The test's answer key does
not allow regionalized answers; for instance, referring to a harmonica as a "mouth harp" is counted as a mistake. She hopes to help the authors rewrite the test to avoid misdiagnosis.
Hall also was sought for help by reporters who didn't understand President Bill Clinton's comment in 1993 that an Air Force official who had criticized him "doesn't know me from Adam's off ox."
Hall said the phrase is used west of the Appalachians in place of the more popular "he doesn't know me from Adam." The "off ox" refers to one of the two oxen once used to plow fields.
ACCIDENT Children among 17 killed in plane crash in Montana
The single engine turboprop plane crashed about 500 feet from the airport in Butte while attempting to land, said spokesman Mike Fergus.
Preliminary reports indicated the dead included numerous children, he said. There were no known fatalities on the ground, he added.
The aircraft had departed from Orville, Calif., and the pilot had filed a flight plan showing a destination of Bozeman. But the pilot canceled his flight plan at some point and headed for Butte, Fergus said.
BUTTE, Mont. — A small plane crashed Sunday as it approached an airport in Montana, killing 17 people, including several children, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.
"We think that it was probably a ski trip for the kids." Fereus said.
The plane was registered to Eagle Cap Leasing Inc. in Enterprise, Ore., Fergus said. He didn't know who was operating the plane.
Fergus said the Pilatus PC-12 aircraft was manufactured in 2001. He said the National Transportation Safety Board has an investigator located in Butte who was thought to be on scene. The FAA's flight standards investigator was en route.
CRIME Officer pronounced dead is still alive on life support
Calls to local authorities were not immediately returned.
Oakland police department spokesman Jeff Thomason said 41-year-old Officer John Hege was pronounced brain dead but was still on life support Sunday afternoon.
OAKLAND, Calif. — Oakland police are backing off an earlier statement that a fourth officer shot Saturday had died.
Thomason said that a final decision was still being made about donating Hege's organs.
Authorities say a 26-year-old parolee opened fire on Hege and 40-year-old Sgt. Mark Dunakin after they pulled him over on Saturday, killing Dunakin.
Suspect Lovelle Mixon was slain later that afternoon in a gunfire with police that left two more officers dead.
Thomason identified those officers as 43-year-old Sgt. Ervin Romans and 35-year-old Sgt. Daniel Sakai.
Associated Press
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