Grammar girl here, I usually hate end-of-year reviews, but as I was looking back over the stories

that caught my attention in 2012, much to my surprise, I truly thought they were worth

reviewing, especially since I haven't talked about most of them in the podcast before.

So today, I'll quickly go through the five or six most interesting stories that you

may have missed.

The first big story that jumped out at BAN 2012 was when Harvard University Press published

the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English in March.

It's a huge accomplishment.

A series of authors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been working on that dictionary for almost

50 years, and in March, they released the fifth volume, which contains the entries from

Slab to Zideco, a kind of Creole dance music.

If you love the maps I make showing where people say things like, their car needs washed

or that an upscale restaurant is spendy, you'll love this dictionary.

It's been used by actors to prepare for roles and by authorities to profile criminals

based on their writing.

If you're a fiction writer, you might find it especially useful for finding words or phrases

that give your characters an authentic, regional feel.

The dictionary itself is pretty spendy, so you might want to check it out at your local

library.

That final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English was also just named to

Smithsonian Magazine's list of the top books of 2012.

The next big story happened in April when Sweden's National Encyclopedia was updated

...