Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Is it a Bubbler or a Water Fountain?
Since the beginning of the semester, I've been following LISNews, a blog of Librarian and Science News. There are several contributing authors who write brief articles linked to a news articles about anything and everything related to libraries, librarians, books, authors, etc. The blog is updated several times a day. This week there was a relevant news story about the newest volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, currently 4 volumes. A two-year federal grant from the National Science Foundation will help publish Volume 5, S-Z in 2010. The DARE, as it's known among librarians will have answer to questions like when and where is it a bubbler, who in the US says such things as "down cellar" (my parents do). The DARE is the kind of fascinating reference source that is so easy to get completely lost in. Trust me, I have. The project was started in 1965 by English Professor Frederic Cassidy, who died in 2000 and whose tombstone reads "On to Z". May he finally rest in peace.
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3 comments:
If you say 'downcellar' then you probably call that water thing a 'bubbler'
That's right!
"Down cellar" is a regional thing? What else would you say if had to go "down cellar"? "Down to the basement", I suppose?
My few years working at Brown Univ. taught me that saying "water bubbler" was not cool in many circles. Some of the Providence natives knew the term, but the international folks, and folks from other parts of the country were clueless. "Water fountain" it became.
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