Dictionary Makers Worldwide DARE To Visit UW-Madison

Americans are entering their high season for dictionary consumption.

“Dictionaries make good graduation gifts,” says Kim Fitzgerald, general books manager at the University Book Store. Fitzgerald adds that the dictionary-buying public much prefers printed dictionaries over their electronic counterparts. “There’s not a great demand for those,” he says.

Whatever their form, the dictionary’s uses far exceed deciding whether you should go with “occassionally” or “occasionally.” (We know: it’s “occasionally.” We have to look it up every time.). In addition to definitive spellings, dictionaries also offer archives for our language, reflecting our history and displaying patterns that help make us who we are.

When it convenes at UW–Madison May 29-31, the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) will use its 11th biennial meeting to explore issues central to dictionary makers, users and lovers. Conference sessions will pay particular attention to multiregional, multicultural agenda items. Special consideration will be given the compiling of dictionaries of Caribbean, Uzbek, African, Oneida, Smoky Mountain and other specialized languages and dialects. The meeting also will take up questions about informal language, children’s dictionaries, the role of illustrations in dictionaries and more.

A session devoted to the UW–Madison Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) will conclude the sessions on May 31. The DARE project, begun in 1965 by UW–Madison now-emeritus professor of English Frederic Cassidy, documents regional and folk usages from coast to coast. Intended for both scholarly and general audiences, DARE demonstrates the sometimes startling regional characteristics that continue to thrive despite great linguistic levelers such as television, radio and the Internet.

Staff working on commercial dictionaries generally update entries at regular intervals, adding new words and discarding obsolete ones. Nowadays, lexicographers also can track new words and meanings electronically, tracing them from their first appearances through gradual adoption in speech to ultimate acceptance in standard written sources.

DARE, however, is a different kind of dictionary, based both on historical written sources and a nationwide survey of spoken language completed between 1965 and 1970. DARE includes those words, phrases and pronunciations that vary from place to place or from one social or ethnic group to another. Because the fieldwork for DARE represents a snapshot of American culture in the mid-20th century, the work never can be repeated.

At the 1997 DSNA conference, UW–Madison will host lexicographers and other scholars and enthusiasts from all over the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. All the major English-language dictionary publishers also will attend, just in time for the calendar’s most active dictionary sales season.

According to Joan Houston Hall, associate editor of DARE, having the biennial conference on campus represents a tribute to the project.

“Dictionary makers from all over the world have said that one of their primary interests in coming to Madison is the chance to visit the DARE project,” she says.

All activities connected with the conference will be open to the public. Most events will be held in Lowell Hall, 610 Langdon St. The DARE session on May 31 will start at 2 p.m. in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin auditorium on Library Mall.

For more information, contact Luanne von Schneidemesser or Cathy Attig, (608) 263-2748.