Hans Kurath (1891–1992)

This book, and others of its ilk like the OED and, I dunno, Debrett's, are the ultimate guarantors of our human knowledge. Whenever somebody gets all up in your sociolinguist grill about "aren't your 'phonemes' just abstractions? How can you generalize about the populace from a small number of speakers? What if one of them has a Chinese aunt?" you can refer them to the only valid answer: back in the '30s, a bunch of crazy obsessives walked the length and breadth of New England (and later the mid-Atlantic states! And then the midwest!), talked to about a billion people about their barns and shit, and recorded what they said in three huge volumes and numerous handbooks that you're only allowed to use under supervision. It makes me want to smash all the computers.… (meer)