Traveling around the United States, I'm always interested in the regional slang that I hear. Even in little New England, where the states are jammed together, objects often have several names. For example, a milk and ice cream blend is called a milk shake in my home state of Connecticut, a frappe in Massachusetts and a cabinet in Rhode Island. Moving further afield, a sandwich on a long roll is a grinder in Hartford, a hoagie in Philly and a sub in Baltimore. Go figure.

A group of linguists has worked for decades to record these regional anomallies, and now is wrapping up the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English. NPR's Weekend Edition took a look at the DARE project, which began in the 1950s. Frederic Cassidy sent workers in "word wagons" to interview Americans people; they talked to nearly 3,000 people over six years, making recordings along the way to capture pronunciations, NPR said. Four volumes -- A through Sk -- were published from 1985-2002, and the last volume is scheduled for release next year. While you wait for volume five, check out DARE's site for words and phrases such as "duck on a rock," "pinkwink" and "feest."

And let me know if you have a favorite regional slang, or a combo like shake/frappe/cabinet.