Mission of the American Dialect Society

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

It should be noted that, though our organization has the name American Dialect Society, its purpose is larger than just dialect. To quote our constitution:
"Its object is the study of the English language in North America, together with other languages or dialects of other languages influencing it or influenced by it."
It is not surprising, therefore, that our discussion list, as well as our publications, includes matters lexicographical as well as phonological and morphological and syntactical; and the history as well as the present status of American English.
- Allan Metcalf

> I don't think that's really what Peter was saying.  To my mind, the point is that many of these posts have nothing to do with dialect. They are simply to relate when a certain word may have been used first.  Those things have value, but not
> necessarily on the American DIALECT society list.
> Fritz