Word: dae
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...choice of Sir William, a Scottish expert on Anglo-Saxon and the Scandinavian tongues, as editor of the DAE, was not as illogical as it might seem. Sir William spent 31 years on the great Oxford English Dictionary, was knighted for his stupendous scholarly labor. Before the last volume of the OED was out, he settled in Chicago for a ten-year stay, to grapple with U.S. lingo. His mountainous task was to find out what Americans had done to the English language since Jamestown was settled in 1607. He brought with "him thousands of cards representing American entries...
...biggest dictionary in the world: in its 2,552 pages, the DAE defines more than 50,000 items, about one-tenth the number listed in an unabridged Webster. But the DAE is pretty comprehensive for what it is: a lexicon of words and turns of speech especially identified with the U.S. before 1900-whether or not they had once been used elsewhere...
Bunt Bungled. With the definitions are given the earliest recorded usage, plus examples, sometimes as recent as 1925. Sources have included books, newspapers, magazines, advertising materials, circus posters - but not the sandlots, saloons or ball parks. That the research was some what cloistered is evident when the DAE defines to bunt as "to stop [the ball] with the bat without swinging . . ." or avers that what gets bleached in the bleachers is the bleachers rather than the fans...
More serious are the omissions: much slang (including John Hancock and limey), guides to pronunciation (especially for Englishmen) and often etymologies. The DAE's weakness in unprinted language may be connected with a reluctance to include unprintable language, for the great U.S. contributions to invective and bawdry are gravely slighted. The DAE's scholarly scope is enormous, and Editor Craigie recognizes the role of plain people in making speech. But in many vital respects Henry Louis Mencken, now at work on his fifth edition of The American Language, can still show the way to the professors...
Skunk, Squash. The DAE pudding, however, contains many a juicy plum. It shows English being enriched, from the earliest days, by borrowings from the U.S. From the Indians came possum, persimmon, punk, skunk, squash, succotash; from the Dutch, cruller, sawbuck, scow, slaw, snoop, stoop, waffle; from the Spanish, cafeteria, calaboose, lariat, mustang; from the German, cranberry...