DARE: The View from the Letter F

Abstract

��� n 1978 when Richard W. Bailey began planning for the first issue of the journal Dictionaries (which appeared in 1979), he asked Frederic G. Cassidy to write an article about the progress of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). By that time DARE’s editorial practices had been established, the letters A and E had been substantially finished, and work had begun on the letters B, C, D, F, G, H, I, L, and M. Although Fred agreed that such an article would be appreciated by members of the Dictionary Society of North America, he also felt over-committed by other obligations. (A look at his bibliography suggests that at that time he would have been working on a review of J. L. Dillard’s American Talk for Language in Society, an article about Gullah and Jamaican Creole for the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, and a contribution to the four-volume festschrift for Archibald A. Hill.) Rather than simply plead overwork and decline Bailey’s request, Fred offered the assignment to me. And as a newcomer to the field of lexicography, I was glad for the opportunity to get my feet wet. Engrossed at that time in editing DARE’s letter F, I used an analysis of the first thousand entries in that letter to provide a preview of what the full Dictionary might look like. “DARE: The View from the Letter F” offered a detailed analysis of categories of entries, treatment of pronunciation and etymology, application of regional, social, and usage labels, and fine points of entry presentation. Now that Volume V (Sl–Z) is close to publication, it is possible to have a much more panoramic view of the whole and to assess the impact of DARE as a scholarly undertaking and as a utilitarian tool.