DARE to struggle, DARE to win

Having used the early volumes of DARE back in my "starving scholar" days, I was excited by this.

Now all they need to do is make it into a smart-phone app.

The DARE web site

It took me 4 tries to get the quiz. I mostly guessed--there was only one word I actually knew.

There were two that I knew, although neither is in my own dialect, but I guessed the others first time.

I guessed them, with a bit of luck.

Does the example "riftin' ", given as Pennsylvania regional speech, mean "breaking wind?" (from either end depending on context but usually burping).

That's how it's used in NE Scotland

I got them all correct, but "vamoose" was the only one I knew for sure. I saw the New York Times article the other day, and it struck me that none of the examples in the article was anything I'd ever heard before.

One page on Pennsylvania Dutch English has rift = belch, as does this page on Western Pennsylvania English (the Pennsylvania Dutch are concentrated in southeastern Pennsylvania).

I've been told that the English-speaking settlers of Pennsylvania and the other mid-Atlantic states tended to be from further north than the (earlier) settlers of New England and the South, as evidenced also by the fact that Pennsylvania English is rhotic.

My two dictionaries vary....
1 - Chambers English Dictionary, the first entry after the letter 'A' - is 'Aardvark'.
2 - The last entry in my 'Great Rock Discography' (a huge book) is 'ZZ Top'.

Nice quiz. Sliding pond is the only term I had heard before but by guessing and elimination I got a "you win!" first time. Most are fairly self-explanatory (at least when you have a set of definitions to choose from), except for Uncle Arthur and toot, those were pure luck.

Palindroma, "Uncle Arthur" must be from "arthur-itis". I admit that didn't occur to me until I had eliminated most of the others. And yes, toot was the last man standing. I know it as meaning either fart or cocaine.