front cover of The Regional Vocabulary of Texas
The Regional Vocabulary of Texas
By E. Bagby Atwood
University of Texas Press, 1962

The vocabulary of Texas, and of the Southwest, has a character that sets it apart from all others. It is to some extent an amalgamation of words brought from other sections. A more important ingredient, however, has been a large group of words that initially grew into usage in Texas itself.

Utilizing a thorough knowledge of language and a remarkable insight into linguistics, E. Bagby Atwood has compiled a reference book for scholars, writers, and laypeople whose interests involve the use of this vocabulary. It is a well-balanced book, designed to present to the reader not only the actual vocabulary in use but also the area involved, topical surveys of words used, their backgrounds, and geographical aspects of their usage. Easterners and Westerners alike will relish the unique flavor of the Southwestern vocabulary.

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front cover of A Survey of Verb Forms in the Eastern United States
A Survey of Verb Forms in the Eastern United States
E. Bagby Atwood
University of Michigan Press, 1953
A Survey of Verb Forms in the Eastern United States, like the recent Word Geography of the Eastern United States by Hans Kurath, is an outgrowth of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada—an undertaking that can truly be called the first large-scale attempt to determine the facts of American linguistic usage by means of direct investigation. Atlas field records covering the entire Eastern United States and representing persons of varying degrees of sophistication have been made available to the writer, and have enabled him to trace not only the geographical spread but also the social distribution of the linguistic features that are treated. This study, which confines itself to verb inflection, does more than differentiate "standard" from "vulgar" usages. It also demonstrates how the early culture centers and the principal migration areas are reflected in the dissemination of grammatical forms. Thus it makes clear that our "Vulgate" grammar, often thought to be uniform throughout the country, is in reality highly varied and regional in its character.
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