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In:Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English
Edited by Marina Dossena
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 4] 2015
► pp. 99–116

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“Provincial in England, but in common use with us”

John R. Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms and the English Dialect Dictionary

ORCiD logo with link | University of Salamanca, Spain
 | University of Salamanca, Spain
 | University of Salamanca, Spain
Published online: 12 February 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.4.05rua
This study explores the reception of American words in Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary (1898–1905). As agreed with the American Dialect Society in the late 1890s, Wright’s dictionary built upon a number of American sources that include dialectalisms likewise found on the other side of the Atlantic. One of the works on which Wright relied is John R. Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), whose lexicographic importance was not only attested by contemporary reviews, but also by modern national-scale projects like the Dictionary of Regional American English (1985–). The paper investigates the contribution of Bartlett’s work to Wright’s coverage of American English. It applies quantitative methods of analysis to determine the proportion of terms taken from this source, their role in the English Dialect Dictionary and how Wright dealt with them. Also, the analysis measures the importance of Bartlett’s work with regard to other American sources quoted in Wright’s dictionary. The aim is to further our knowledge of the source materials that laid the foundation of this lexicographic milestone, as well as gain insight into the lexical links existing between varieties of English in the Late Modern period.
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Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Dossena, Marina
2022. “Gems of elocution and humour”. In Earlier North American Englishes [Varieties of English Around the World, G66], ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Busse, Ulrich
2020. “Divided by a common language”?. In Late Modern English [Studies in Language Companion Series, 214], ► pp. 185 ff. DOI logo
Ruano-García, Javier
2018.  Common to the North of England and to New England . In Sociocultural Dimensions of Lexis and Text in the History of English [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 343], ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Ruano-García, Javier
2019. On the Colonial Element in Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary. International Journal of Lexicography 32:1 ► pp. 38 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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