The Dictionary of American Regional English

“To open its pages is to thrill at the exploration of the New World and to trace the course of American history through its language… Its editors…have caught the native poetry of America on every page.”
—Fred Strebeigh, Smithsonian

“[T]hese volumes are the most complete lexical records we have of the American experience… DARE…is not a dictionary; it is a national treasure.”
—Edward Callary, Language in Society

“[T]he set that no library can afford to absquatulate.”
—William Safire

Watch DARE Chief Editor Joan Houston Hall and Wordnik founder Erin McKean explain
the history and significance of this authoritative record of American English:

American English, from ‘Ayuh’ to ‘Zydeco’

Since the 1985 publication of Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume I : A–C, this magisterial account of how English is spoken and used in the U.S. has been an invaluable resource (and indulgence) for scholars, professionals, and word fiends alike. With the arrival of Volume V : Sl–Z comes a further installment of riches for DARE fans new and old. Whether you need to know what to wear to a tacky party, what it means to telephone fish, or where to find a Yooper—or if you want to know the geographic origin and evolving usage of any of those terms—Volume V  is the place to go.

In 1962, Frederic Cassidy, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was appointed chief editor of a dictionary of American dialects. Over the next several years, he crafted a 1600-question survey dealing with every aspect of daily life, from time and weather to courtship and marriage. Starting in 1965, eighty fieldworkers (some of them driving campers dubbed “Word Wagons”) took surveys in hand and headed to 1002 representative communities across the U.S. Over the course of six years, they interviewed 2777 informants.

Back in Madison, DARE editors mapped that trove of data, and then spent the next 40 years combining it with printed citations (from the eighteenth century up through 2011) to reveal the geographic distributions of thousands of usages. The product of those decades of labor is a 60,000-entry dictionary that offers definitions, variant spellings, word origins, and variant pronunciations—but also shows where a word is used and lists synonyms for the same term from across the country.

The arrival of the Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume V  fills out this definitive story of American speech, realizing Fred Cassidy’s dream and satisfying the anticipation of language lovers everywhere.

Dive Deeper into DARE

At the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s DARE page, listen to audio recordings of speakers from different parts of the country, view a slideshow of historic photos, and test your mastery of American regional English with an interactive quiz. You can also view a complete sample entry from the dictionary, including the DARE fieldworker’s original survey question and the classic “DARE Map” showing where in U.S. the term is used.

The Books

• 
  Volume I : A–C
• 
  Volume II : D–H
• 
  Volume III : I–O
• 
  Volume IV : P–Sk
• 
  Volume V : Sl–Z
• 
  Volume VI : Index

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Related Links

• More about Digital DARE
• See all DARE volumes and buy online
• The official DARE Project website
• DARE feature from U.W. Madison’s Communications Office
• DARE on Facebook
• Quiz yourself and listen to audio samples at PBS’s “Do You Speak American?”
• Browse all Harvard University Press reference titles

DARE in the Press

• history dept. (NPR blog)
• The Guardian
• The Mirror
• The Guardian
• WKOW News (Madison, WI)
• Body Language (Harvard Medical School Newsletter)
• Dictionary.com blog
• WXOW News (La Crosse, WI)
• A Way with Words
• The Chicago Sun-Times
• The New Republic
• Lingua Franca (CHE blog): I • II • III • IV
• SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle blog)
• The Harvard Gazette
• Associated Press (via the Washington Post)
• Time Magazine: Newsfeed
• Booklist
• The New Yorker (“Best of 2012” Selections)
• Smithsonian (“Top Books of 2012”)
• The Millions
• American Way
• Dialogue (Idaho Public Television) (audio)
• Emory Magazine
• On Wisconsin
• The New Yorker
• Lapham’s Quarterly (podcast)
• The Daily Beast
• Mental Floss
• The Bellingham Herald
• Special English (Voice of America)
• The Larry Meiller Show (WPR)
• I Remember (Milwaukee Public Television)
• The Boston Globe
• The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
• Words and Their Stories (Voice of America)
• Lapham’s Quarterly
• The Chicago Tribune
• Squid Ink (L.A. Weekly food blog)
• The Style Blog (Washington Post blog)
• Here & Now (WBUR)
• Whitehouse.gov
• The San Antonio Express-News
• AirTalk (KPCC)
• The Richmond Times-Dispatch
• NPR Books
• Tampa Bay Online
• The Tulsa World
• The Bangor Daily News
• You Don’t Say (Baltimore Sun blog): I • II
• The Times-Picayune
• Reuters
• The Diane Rehm Show (WAMU)
• The Denver Post
• Associated Press (via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Seattle’s Morning News (KIRO)
• The Capital Times (Madison, WI)
• The Chronicle of Higher Education
• Arts Beat (NYT  blog)
• Smithsonian
• ABC World News (with quiz)
• USA Today
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• The New York Times (with sidebar)
• WKOW News (Madison, WI)
• The Wall Street Journal (with interactive)
• Forum with Michael Krasny (KQED)
• The Kathleen Dunn Show (WPR)
• The Takeaway (WNYC)
• As It Happens (CBC Radio)
• The Guardian
• Ideas Market (WSJ  blog)
• The Boston Globe
• Humanities Magazine
• Weekend Edition Sunday (NPR)