If you'd like your landlord to finally fix that drafty window, tell him you're feeling \crimmy.""
Joan Houston Hall, chief editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English, introduced ""crimmy,"" meaning ""cold,"" and other regionally unique terms and phrases Wednesday in a speech presented by the UW-Madison Language Institute.
Houston Hall said she was perplexed by unfamiliar phrases after moving to Wisconsin in 1975. She recounted the time a colleague asked, ""Would you hand me a paper clip once?""
""I'd be happy to do it two times,"" Houston Hall said.
According to Houston Hall, many have long thought the proliferation of mass media would result in the homogenization of dialects across the U.S. Linguistics research conducted at UW-Madison, along with the colorful examples included in DARE, shows this is not the case, she said.
""When people today insist American English is losing its regional flavor, I can point to this,"" Houston Hall said.
Houston Hall said people do not simply adopt aspects of dialects they are exposed to on a casual basis.
""You can listen to Barbara Walters but you're not going to go away sounding like Barbara Walters,"" Houston Hall said.
UW-Madison professor Frederic Cassidy began the research that would become DARE in the early 1960s. Cassidy collected regional words by surveying native residents of over 1,000 communities across the nation, focusing heavily on senior citizens.
Houston Hall said DARE is also used frequently by professionals. She recounted the story of an FBI agent who used DARE to locate a kidnapping suspect by searching for the origin of a unique word used in a ransom note.
""We are very pleased to have law enforcement among our users,"" Houston Hall said.
Members of the audience offered Houston Hall samples of their own regional dialects.
""I've always called the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street a tree lawn,"" UW-Madison junior Brian Glueck said. ""I mentioned it to friends who didn't grow up in Madison and they'd never heard of it.""
Language Institute outreach coordinator Catherine Reiland said the organization hopes to use events such as this to promote the study of language.
""We're bringing more than 700 high school students to campus in April,"" Reiland said.
Houston Hall said efforts are underway to create an online DARE reference tool.
