DARE to Learn Regional English

There were several great stories this morning on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, the first of which was about the Dictionary of American Regional English. (The link includes both text and audio versions of the story.)

Begun by linguist Frederic Cassidy in the 1950s, DARE is being published in five volumes, the last of which is due to be released next year (SL - Z). Collecting these tomes would put a dent in the wallet, however -- the volumes run anywhere from $50 to $200 apiece on Amazon.com.

But what a collection it is. The short excerpts on the NPR page are great:

• honeyfuggle (v) To swindle or dupe; to intend to cheat or trick. (Usage: scattered)
• hookem-snivey (adj) Deceitful, sneaky. (Usage: scattered)
• rantum scoot (n) An outing with no definite destination (Usage: scattered)

I wonder if these would be allowable words in Scrabble? Or are regionalisms automatically considered slang?

Another usage listed is "hell-for-leather (adv) At top speed, in great haste. (Usage: scattered, but especially the West Coast)." Gee, I learned that as hell-bent-for-leather, although hell-for-leather sounds familiar as well. And I'm not from the West Coast. Maybe I read it in a Western.

The NPR story referenced the term "monkey's wedding," which comes from Maine and means "a chaotic, messy situation." Wow, what a great expression!

The University of Wisconsin maintains a site about DARE, which includes 100 entries from the dictionary, as well as the dictionary's index as a whole. Cassidy was a professor at UW-Madison, and Madison is where they're still working to finish Volume V.

Sometimes I think I really should have majored in linguistics.