Fred Cassidy

[AAllan at AOL.COM]

Among his countless accomplishments, Fred is incidentally responsible for the
longest-running and most popular feature of the Newsletter of the American
Dialect Society. In the summer of 1977, when he visited Raven McDavid's NEH
seminar at the University of Chicago, I as a new editor suggested that he
have a column in each issue telling us about progress on the as yet
unpublished dictionary. He immediately thought of something better: a column
tantalizing us with obscure words and asking our help. Ever since, the DARE
queries have invited our participation and reminded us that DARE is an ADS
project - and worthy of our financial support too, while we're at it.

No. 48 in the series will appear in the "May" issue. It was going to the
printer yesterday but will be delayed a week to include full coverage of
events in Madison. - Allan Metcalf