[Ads-l] cleanser

[Joan Hall]

Here is DARE’s entry:

cleanser n
eNew England<https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/search?rcode=region.NEng>, esp Boston<https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/search?rcode=region.Boston> Massachusetts<https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/search?rcode=region.MA> area

A dry cleaner.


  *   1958 AmSp<https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/bibliography?letterHeading=A#bibl_4444> 33.158, The area in which cleaning and cleaners become cleansing and cleansers shows a striking coincidence with the major portion of the classic Atlas ‘tonic’ area of eastern New England. . . in Boston and its environs, extending westerly as far as Worcester, they [cleansers and cleansing establishments] began to appear in profusion.
  *   1961 AmSp<https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/bibliography?letterHeading=A#bibl_4444> 36.225, In the area pivoting on Boston, cleanser seems to be a survival of a genuine regionalism, probably now found chiefly in the names of firms. The Boston Directory for 1907, pp. 2051–52, has the headings Cleansers and Cleansing Works, with not a cleaner in sight. . . The 1958 Yellow Pages for Portland, Maine, . . lists 10 cleansers to 18 cleaners. Other New England cities outside the [tonic] area have a much lower proportion: Burlington, Vt., one to 12; Concord, N.H., one to 11; Manchester, N.H., 4 to 21.
  *   1966 PMLA<https://www-daredictionary-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/bibliography?letterHeading=M#bibl_6922> 81.2.11, A Middle Western academician transplanted to MIT quickly learns to order tonic for his children, not soda pop, and to send his clothes to a cleanser.


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