The DAE and Topographic Terms

N A RECENT volume entitled Topographic Terms in Virginia,' George Davis McJimsey has made a comprehensive study of a limited and hitherto neglected portion of the American vocabulary. Although this book is not correct in every detail,2 it is, nevertheless, an important contribution to American lexicography, and as such it inevitably invites comparison in various ways with the Dictionary of American English, now well over halfway through the alphabet. The recent publication of Part XIII of the DAE (Mingo to Outdoor Life) reveals the fact that the editors of that work have had access to McJimsey's book,3 although it was not available for their use in the preceding parts of the dictionary. It is, therefore, proper to bring together now those topographic terms given in McJimsey's glossary which are not included in the first twelve parts of the DAE, for such a list may serve as a not too trivial supplement to the work of the Chicago dictionarymakers.4

Geography · Lexicography and Language Studies