Dixie Dictionary: Your Complete Guide to the Southern Language - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575872005 ISBN 13: 9781575872001

Publisher: Crane Hill Pub, 2002

Synopsis

Those who enjoy speaking Southern, or wish they could, will delight in hundreds of regional delights like "abode" (a wooden board), "acknowledge the corn" (to confess), and "pully bone" (wishbone). Includes 4,300 entries and 27,000 words.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas W. Howard has worked as an editor and reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch for almost forty years. Currently, he serves as a humor columnist and free-lance writer. Mr. Howard has worked as the Virginia correspondent for McGraw-Hill World News and for Fortune magazine. His book, Black Voyage, published by Little Brown in 1971, was ranked as one of that year's ten best juveniles by The School Library Journal.

Reviews

Though both these paperback dictionaries are dedicated to the Southern idiom, they are remarkably different in content; a quick cross-check finds many unique entries in each. Written by a Texas native, Southern Tongue, which contains over 1300 words and expressions, provides examples of the word or phrase in a sentence always helpful in this type of dictionary, as it more clearly defines the word for the reader. The Dixie Dictionary, by veteran Richmond Times- Dispatch editor and reporter Howard, does not use examples in its 4300 entries and suffers for it. The definitions in both books are wan at best, which is a shame. Certainly, not every word requires detailed definitions, but these dictionaries capture many colorful and impressive locutions, and it would have been immensely helpful if readers had been given a better feel for that richness. Earlier books that cover the subject include Whistlin' Dixie: A Dictionary of Southern Expressions and You All Spoken Here. Libraries that do not own those titles could address the need for a dictionary-style reference on Southern language with either of these two new books, and inexpensively so. Still, while the average reader may find these of interest, the scholar will find only a scant beginning for research or study here. Manya S. Chylinski, Ernst & Young Ctr. for Business Knowledge, Boston
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crane Hill Pub
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575872005
• ISBN 13: 9781575872001
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 143
• Editor: Howard Thomas W.