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<h2 class="">Requiem for a Dictionary? or Life Support?</h2>
<div class="" style="width:370px"><img class=" " alt="" src="http://dare.wisc.edu/sites/dare.wisc.edu/files/images/devil%20strip%20sign.jpg" height="484" width="360"><p class="">A forensic linguist once used <em>DARE</em> to find a kidnapper, whose ransom note read “leave the money on the devil strip,” a term used in northern Ohio. Image courtesy <em>DARE</em> archives.</p></div>
<p>Since the 19th century, one of the grandest of scholarly projects in
the humanities has been the making of historical dictionaries. These are
comprehensive multivolume dictionaries that aim to cover a language in
all its historical depth and contemporary breadth. The best known of
these is the <em>Oxford English Dictionary</em>, begun in 1857<em>, </em>published in installments from 1884 to 1933, and when completed amounting to 13 massive volumes.</p>
<p>That first edition of the <em>OED</em> neglected the English spoken
outside of the British Isles, so to fill a particular portion of that
gap, the University of Chicago Press sponsored a four-volume <em>Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles </em>in four volumes, begun in 1925 and published between 1936 and 1944.</p>
<p>And this brings us to the greatest American lexicographical project of the latter 20th century, the <em><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/What-We-Say-Here-an-American/130969/">Dictionary of American Regional English</a>.</em>
Like its predecessors, it took many years to write and publish. Work
began in 1963. Volume I, edited by Frederic G. Cassidy, an English
professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, was published in
1985. The last of the six volumes of words from all corners America,
edited by Joan H. Hall, was published in 2013. (Full disclosure: I am
executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, the longtime
sponsor of <em>DARE</em>.)</p>
<p>The uniqueness of <em>DARE</em> is evident in a comparison Hall recently made between <em>DARE</em> and a standard wordlist known as <a href="https://wordnet.princeton.edu/">WordNet</a>. Of 75,135 headwords in <em>DARE,</em> she reported, 61,359 are not found in WordNet.</p>
<p>In the past, when the last of the massive volumes saw print, the
project would be finished, the office closed, and the staff dispersed to
whatever future callings. The dictionary, with suitable honors and
awards, would rest in peace in reference libraries for the benefit of
future scholars.</p>
<p>But this is the 21st century. And in this digital age, reference
works are not just entombed; they have the possibility of eternal life,
or at least continuing life, not weighing down a researcher’s shelves
but existing weightless in the cloud, available with a touch of a
keyboard and a click of a mouse.</p>
<p>It’s not just the weightlessness that makes the electronic version so
convenient. It allows sophisticated searching and correlation of the
entries and the information associated with them.</p>
<p>All this is well known. The virtues and features of <em><a href="http://dare.wisc.edu/">DARE</a>,</em> including its <a href="http://www.daredictionary.com/">electronic version</a>, have been <a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/12/13/air-dare/">celebrated</a> in Lingua Franca before. What is new is making public the news that, for lack of funds, the updating of <em>DARE</em> may come to an end in the next few months.</p>
<p>The <em>Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</em> raised the warning last week in a <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/end-may-be-near-for-dictionary-of-american-regional-english-b99469474z1-297906951.html">comprehensive article</a> by Mark Johnson with the pointed headline, “”UW out of money for groundbreaking project.”</p>
<p>This monumental work of scholarship has required monumental amounts
of money, and the money is about to dwindle to a trickle. What supports a
few staff members now will allow for only one part-time person in the
coming fiscal year.</p>
<p>Unless everyone helps out. So here is a blatant request for support: You can click on<a href="http://dare.wisc.edu/contact/donate"> “Make a Gift”</a> at the <em>DARE</em> website.</p>
<p>Or, to do it the 21st century way, try crowdsourcing <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/qjfsgs">here</a> (where you’ll also find out what <em>DARE</em> and the Wisconsin forward Nigel Hayes have in common).</p>
<p>I DARE you.</p>
<p>And by the way, go Badgers!</p><p><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2015/04/06/requiem-for-a-dictionary-or-life-support/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en">http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2015/04/06/requiem-for-a-dictionary-or-life-support/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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