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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Dictionary of American Regional English has finally reached its final word - "zydeco" - as researchers wrap up almost 50 years of work charting the rich variety of American speech.

The dictionary's official publication date is March 20 but lexicographers and word fans have been celebrating ever since its fifth and final volume emerged earlier this year.

"It truly is America's dictionary," Ben Zimmer, a language columnist and lexicographer, told a Washington, D.C. news conference on Thursday.

He said when the final printed volume was delivered to its longtime editor, Joan Houston Hall, at a meeting of fellow dialect scholars: "There were audible gasps in the room."

The Dictionary of American Regional English's (DARE) 60,000 entries running from "A" to "zydeco," a style of Louisiana Cajun music, serve as a comprehensive sample of how American speech changes from region to region.

That space between sidewalk and curb? Depending on what part of the United States it is in, it can be called "parking," "devil's strip," "swale," "parkway" or "tree lawn."

Hall, who has headed the DARE project since 2000, said she was convinced fears that American English was becoming homogenized through television and mass media were unfounded.

"I don't buy it. Yes, language changes at different rates and at different places," she said. "But most of the words among our family and friends that are regional we don't even recognize as regional."

Although the idea of a dictionary of American dialects had been around since the 1880s, the project did not take shape until 1962, when Frederick Cassidy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was appointed editor.

The DARE project was based on interviews carried out in more than 1,000 communities from 1965 to 1970 by University of Wisconsin researchers.

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US regional dictionary gets in last word as it wraps up work

NEW YORK (AP) It isn't what you say that counts, but who you say it about.

That's a lesson from the firestorm set off last week by Rush Limbaugh when he called a Georgetown University student a "slut" and "prostitute."

But maybe, even in the untamed world of talk-show blather, "slut" already held sway as the new s-word, an epithet that crosses the line whomever it targets and is best avoided altogether by gabmeisters.

That's what left-leaning talk-show host Ed Schultz learned painfully way back last spring. On his MSNBC show he referred to conservative commentator Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut." Amid the outcry triggered among Ingraham fans, he apologized, announcing that he and MSNBC had mutually agreed to his suspension for several days.

But Schultz's indiscretion was fleeting compared with Limbaugh's repeated attacks on Sandra Fluke.

The 30-year-old law student had been invited to testify to a House committee about her school's health care plan, which does not include contraception. After Republican lawmakers barred her testimony, Democrats welcomed her to speak to them at an unofficial session.

On his radio show, Limbaugh slammed Fluke as a "slut" who wanted the government to subsidize her sex life: "She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex," he said.

Then, the next day, he added this demand: "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, thus pay for you to have sex ... we want you to post the videos online, so we can all watch."

For some reason, these assaults agitated many women and men.

Meanwhile, advertisers by the dozens and even a few stations began dropping Limbaugh's show.

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Rush wreaks the s-word, but why are people so mad?

Not that long ago, an Eddie Murphy was a box-office slam-dunk.

And then came "Meet Dave."

And "Imagine That."

DreamWorks' "A Thousand Words," which stars Murphy as a fast-talking book agent, is finally being released nearly four years after it was filmed. Paramount, which releases DreamWorks movies made at the studio before Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider's company moved to Disney, isn't expecting "A Thousand Words" to break any records.

Paramount initially hoped that "A Thousand Words" would benefit from Murphy's work in the ensemble caper comedy "A Tower Heist" and his hosting this year's Oscars. But "Tower Heist" fizzled fast, and Murphy quit as the Oscar MC when Brett Ratner (who directed "Tower Heist") was forced to resign as the Academy Awards' producer.

This week's Word of Mouth column looks at the film's troubled history, with this video preview:

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Word of Mouth: Eddie Murphy's not laughing on way to bank

NEW YORK Increasingly, the media zoo that is SXSW looks more like todays overlapping media world.

The annual South by Southwest Conference and Festival, which begins Friday, gathers thousands of creators, performers, media and industry members for 10 days onto the boozy downtown streets of Austin, Texas. Its really three festivals Interactive, Film and Music in one, but each bleeds into the other.

The annual buzz word at SXSW is always convergence. Just as the tech and entertainment worlds physically descend onto Austin, media forms, too, are diverging. Many of those technologies and companies that might be found at SXSW Interactive have greatly altered those at SXSW Film (video-on-demand, Netflix, Hulu) and at SXSW Music (Apple, Spotify, Pandora).

Its a place where the question is always whats next and one has the impression of meandering hordes traipsing the streets of Austin searching for answers to a confusing and ever-evolving media landscape. There will be hundreds of panel discussions, countless predictions and even man vs. machine competitions that pit algorithms against curators.

Its like stepping into a temporary world for one week where youre maybe two or three or five years in the future, says Amber Case, wholl be making her fourth trip to SXSW as a keynote speaker for Interactive. Shes a cyborg anthropologist who studies the relationship between humans and machines, and founded the location-sharing platform Geoloqi.com.

Each realm of SXSW will have its own superstars. None will be bigger than Bruce Springsteen, this years music keynote speaker. (NPR Music and SXSW.com will live stream the event.) Interactive, though, will have its own rock stars, including Napster co-founder Sean Parker (famously portrayed by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network).

Many others will be there, too, often promoting new projects, including Jay-Z, Willem Dafoe (The Hunter), Richard Linklater and Jack Black (Bernie), Jack White, Joss Whedon (The Cabin in the Woods), Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow (HBOs Girls), comedy podcast star Marc Maron, the Magnetic Fields and a few thousand more.

SXSW, effectively a trade show for industry and media members, has been around since 1987 and has historically been primarily a music event where labels showcase their acts and young bands seek their big break. Film and what was then called multimedia were added in 1994.

After some lean years supported financially by the music side of SXSW, the Interactive part of SXSW has in recent years swelled to become the largest aspect of the event.

Its not all that apparent what were doing different now, but knock on wood, says Hugh Forrest, director of SXSW Interactive. Theres lots of reasons for the growth, but the general reason that encapsulates it all is the growth of social media and social networks.

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As digital, film and music worlds gather for SXSW media zoo, ‘convergence’ is annual buzz word

GENEVA (AP) Alliances are the buzz word of European automakers' struggle for survival.

PSA Peugeot-Citroen chairman Philippe Varin said Wednesday at the Geneva Motor Show that a new alliance with General Motors will allow the French automaker to return to long-term profitability in Europe.

There is hardly a potential ally that Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne will rule out.

"We are open to everything," Marchionne said, even as the fresh GM-Peugeot alliance complicates Fiat's search for potential new partners.

While alliances have been around for a while some more successful than others the brutal European car market characterized by plummeting sales, idled factories and fierce competition is pushing many automakers to look for partners for new technology and access to fresh markets without reinventing the wheel.

Industrial tie-ups are becoming even more urgent as the European market continues to contract. Sales were down 200,000 units, or 9 percent, in the first two months of the year, and the car market has lost some 2.5 million vehicle sales from its peak in 2006-07, according to figures from IHS Automotive.

"This requires more and more investment that nobody can do except through acquisitions and alliances," said Carlos Ghosn, head of the 13-year-old Nissan and Renault alliance. "If Nissan were alone and Renault were alone there were many things we could not do."

Targeted alliances are driven by the logic that a good four-cylinder engine is a good four-cylinder no matter who builds it, and no driver cares about what platform the car is on. Only when it comes to more powerful engines, does brand identity come into play. Maserati and Ferrari, for example, strictly restrict their powertrain technologies to those brands.

The Peugeot-GM alliance is somewhat broader. GM becomes the French automaker's second-largest shareholder with a 7-percent stake, behind the Peugeot family, whose stake drops from 31 percent to around 25 percent.

"It represents an opportunity to build a strong and more profitable business not just in Europe, but in other parts of the world," Varins said, allowing Peugeot to address tightening emissions targets in Europe and strengthen its position in emerging markets in a way not economically feasible on its own.

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Auto alliances the buzz word for survival