Cassidy, Frederic Gomes

▪ 2001

      Jamaican-born American lexicographer (b. Oct. 10, 1907, Kingston, Jam.—d. June 14, 2000, Madison, Wis.), was a leading authority on American folk language; he edited the comprehensive Dictionary of American Regional English. In 1939, a year after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Cassidy joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he spent the duration of his career. He published two books on the language of his native Jamaica, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English in Jamaica (1961) and the Dictionary of Jamaican English (1967), while beginning work on the Dictionary of American Regional English. The first volume of the dictionary appeared in 1985. At the time of Cassidy's death, three volumes had been published, and work on a fourth was in progress.

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