ABSTRACT
The dictionary of epithets deals as comprehensively as possible with the terms of address - names, words, and phrases such as 'John', 'darling' - used by English-speaking people. It adopts a descriptive approach and is the first dictionary of its kind for any language. However, with the English language spread as it is throughout the world, a synchronic approach to it is as necessary, and as interesting, as a diachronic one. British, American, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, South African, and other native-speakers of English use varieties of the language that differ from one another to a greater or lesser extent. Speakers from Tyneside, and in earlier times from other English regions, can also be marked by their late use of 'thou' and its oblique forms. In this dictionary 'term of address' and 'vocative' are synonymous umbrella terms which cover a number of sub-categories.
