Scope and Content: This series contains completed questionnaires documenting different uses of certain words and expressions throughout Canada. While the introductory explanatory paragraph of the questionnaires suggest that they were created for a larger project involving a comparison of language usage in the Middle Western United States, these particular questionnaires appear to have been used by Dr. Raven I. McDavid Jr. for teaching purposes. They can be divided into two different sections:

1. Files 1-4 contain questionnaires used for a class that McDavid taught in Autumn 1958, entitled "English 309". This class was held at the University of Chicago, where McDavid was an Associate Professor of English at the time. The questionnaires from this section cover the regions of Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia.

2. Files 5-6 contain slightly altered questionnaires from 1961, which appear to have been a part of "English 3-497: North American English". This is one of the two English classes that McDavid taught at the University of New Brunswick during the summer session of 1961. These questionnaires have three more questions than the ones used in 1958, but are otherwise very similar. They cover two regions -- New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Included with each completed questionnaire is a short paragraph describing the nature of the study, as well as directions for, and biographical information concerning, the informants. Also included in this series (file 7) is what appears to be an annotated prototype for the questionnaire, with changes and suggestions on how to make the survey better.

Arrangement is arbitrary.

Notes:

Title: Title based on contents of the series. The original title, found on the outside of the boxes that housed the questionnaires, was "vocabulary exercises", but it was decided that this did not fully reflect the nature of the material.

File listings available upon request.