Dictionary of American Regional English

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Dip into the "Dictionary of American Regional English" and enter the rich, endlessly entertaining, ever-changing world of American speech. Learn what a Minnesota grandma is making when she fixes "lefse, " what a counterman in a Buffalo deli means by "kimmelweck" or a Hawaiian baker puts into a "malassada." Find out what kids on the streets of New York are doing when they play "Johnny-on-the-pony" or "off-the-point, " what Southerners do when they use their "tom walkers, " what the folks in Oklahoma and Texas celebrate on "Juneteenth" and those in some parts of Wisconsin at a "kermis." Like its enormously popular predecessors, this volume captures the language of our lives, from east to west, north to south, urban to rural, childhood to old age. Here are the terms that distinguish us, one from the other, and knit us together in one vast, colorful tapestry of imperfect, perfectly enchanting speech. More than five hundred maps show where you might be if you looked in a garden and saw "moccasin flowers, " "indian cigars, " or "lady peas", if you encountered a bullfrog and cried, "jugarum!", or came upon a hover fly and exclaimed, "newsbee!" And here, at long last, is an explanation of what the "madstone" and the "money cat" portend. Built upon an unprecedented survey of spoken English across America and bolstered by extensive historical research, the "Dictionary of American Regional English" preserves a language that lives and dies as we breathe. It will amuse and inform, delight and instruct, and keep alive the speech that we have made our own, and that has made us who we are.