UW-Madison lexicographer Luanne von Schneidemesser, Senior Editor (Distinguished Scientist) on the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), is currently president of the American Dialect Society, which held its annual meeting in January in Portland, OR.
DARE is a nationally-known project which has been headquartered at UW-Madison since it started under the editorship of Professor Frederic G. Cassidy in 1963; upon his death, Joan Houston Hall took over editorship.
Von Schneidemesser follows in the footsteps of Cassidy, who was ADS president in 1958, and Hall, 2005-06. It is very fitting that von Schneidemesser is currently president, since the fifth volume of DARE, through the letter Z, has just been published and was presented to Society members at the Portland meeting. ADS is the sponsor of DARE. A sixth volume with supplementary material is now at the publisher, Harvard University Press, and will be available next January for the ADS meeting in Boston. The on-line version of DARE will also become available in 2013.
DARE’s work has expanded the knowledge about the English language in America, both spoken and written, not only words and phrases but also pronunciation and grammar. DARE’s presence has greatly increased the visibility of UW-Madison in the fields of linguistics, dialectology, and lexicography. It has also been helpful in the fields of copyright law, medicine and psychiatry, natural sciences, forensic linguistics, standardized testing, and others.
Von Schneidemesser served on the Executive Council of ADS from 1994 to 1999. She was president-elect/vice president and chair of the program committee from 2009 to 2011, after which she started her two-year term as president. She is also a Fellow of the Dictionary Society of North America and has served as chair of the Council of Administrative Officers of the American Council of Learned Societies, where she also served on the Board of Directors. She received her doctorate from the UW-Madison in German linguistics.
Founded in 1889, the American Dialect Society, a non-profit membership organization, is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it.