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May 13: Great news! 

April 24: Sign up to be a beta tester of the online version of DARE here.

February 15: We are thrilled to be the recipients of the Reference and User Services Association's...

What Is DARE?

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is a multi-volume reference work that documents words, phrases, and pronunciations that vary from one place to another place across the United States... read more...

At the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Dialect Society, papers by (left to right:) Grant Barrett, Michael Adams, and Thomas Purnell comprised a session celebrating DARE, moderated by Chief Editor Joan Hall.

Joan Hall, Senior Scientist in the Department of English and Chief Editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), reviews index cards containing edited entries to be included in the fifth and final volume of DARE while working in the project's office in Helen C. White Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Feb. 5, 2009.

Leonard Zwilling, General Editor and Bibliographer for the Dictionary of American Regional English, uses a magnifying glass as he writes a definition for storm porch, referring to one of the 35 dictionaries he uses in his research.

 

On July 15 the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents honored the Dictionary of American Regional English with a 2011 Academic Staff Award for Excellence. The highest recognition bestowed on members of the UW System’s academic staff, this award “is intended  to recognize and reward a non-instructional Academic Staff program that demonstrates excellence of performance and outstanding achievement from among all the UW System institutions.” Regent Betty Womack presented the award to Chief Editor Joan Houston Hall.

Members of the DARE staff at the awards ceremony (left to right: Beth Gardner, Julie Schnebly, Ginny Bormann, Cathy Attig, Roland Berns, Janet Monk, Luanne von Schneidemesser, George Goebel, Regent Betty Womack, and Joan Hall; Elizabeth Blake was unable to attend)

Luanne von Schneidemesser completed her term as president of the American Dialect Society at the annual luncheon during the annual meeting in Boston in January, giving the Presidential Address, entitled “Bubblers, Schnibbles, Lawyers, and Cheeseheads: Linguistic Outreach.  The Wisconsin Idea.”   She also presented Presidential Honorary Memberships to three graduate students, nominated by ADS members.  The recipients were Paul Reed, University of South Carolina (pictured here), Janneke Van Hofwegen, Stanford University, and Shelly Swearinger, University of Michigan.

Luanne von Schneidemesser and David Foss of Harvard University Press in Boston celebrating the completion of Volume VI.

DARE Publicity

Want to check out more links to DARE in the news?  Want to find out some DARE words specific to your state? Want to hear audio samples of speakers from different parts of the United States?  Take quizzes? Get media contact info? Please check out the University Communications/DARE  website.

What are people saying about DARE?

“Touring the Dictionary of American Regional English is a road trip of the mind from sea to shining sea. . . . It speaks with authority about American regional speech and has also captured the popular imagination. It is a peerless resource for scholars, but at the same time delivers accurate information about regional vocabulary to laypersons who, until DARE, could not count on access to it.”      

Michael Adams, Humanities

“Can a person fall in love with a dictionary? If the work in question is the Dictionary of American Regional English, which has just published its fifth volume, Sl-Z, the answer appears to be yes.”

Heidi Landecker, The Chronicle of Higher Education

    “The recently completed Dictionary of American Regional English . . . explains more than 60,000 regional words and phrases. . . . It arrives in time for the 2012 presidential election with words like snollygoster, a Southern term for a self-promoting politician.”

Barbara Rodriguez, Associated Press

“For scholars of American English, this volume and the series it completes are a hoard of riches. . . . It is a repository of who we have been as a people, and who we are.”

John E. McIntyre, Baltimore Sun

 “A great project on how Americans speak—make that the great project on how Americans speak—is reaching completion this spring. . . . DARE stands alone as the most exhaustive record of regional speech in America, each page bursting with geographically nuanced information about the country’s diverse lexicon. It’s a joy to page through: Where else would you learn that snuff for chewing is called snoose in the Pacific Northwest, and also goes by the name Swedish condition powder?”

Ben Zimmer, Boston Globe

"With more than 60,000 main entries, covering the manifestations of the American dialect through much of its history, DARE represents, in the opinion of this reviewer, the greatest achievement in American lexicography in the past 50 years."

Frank Abate, American Speech

 

 
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