Danny Cassidy, 1945 -- 2008

Danny Cassidy, Irish American scholar and activist, died yesterday in San Francisco after fighting a long battle with cancer. His 2007 book, "How the Irish Invented Slang," won the 2007 American Book Award for non-fiction.

I did not know him, but I can attest to the strength of feeling amongst some of my Irish friends here in New York: he was loved, was respected and now is mourned.

Cassidy argued in his book that many American English slang words were derived from Gaelic, a claim with which some disagreed. But if they thought his argument thin, they must never have experienced his vast passion for the Irish language. Here's how Corey Kilgannon of the New York Times described Cassidy's thesis:

'He began finding one word after another that seemed to derive from the strain of Gaelic spoken in Ireland, known as Irish. The word “gimmick” seemed to come from “camag,” meaning trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick.

Could “scam” have derived from the expression “’S cam é,” meaning a trick or a deception? Similarly, “slum” seemed similar to an expression meaning “It is poverty.” “Dork” resembled “dorc,” which Mr. Cassidy’s dictionary called “a small lumpish person.” As for “twerp,” the Irish word for dwarf is “duirb.”

Cassidy was born and raised in New York City and latterly taught Irish studies at the New College of California, in San Francisco. He also wrote the Irish language column for the Irish Echo newspaper in the last year. He helped found Irish Writers and Artists for Obama, which group formed early in the primary season to back Barack Obama (many Irish and Irish Americans lined up to back Hilary Clinton, which gave an unnerving glimpse into the racism that inhabits the community: when Clinton failed to win the nomination, some suggested publically that they would vote for McCain, which to me is the same as saying "I can't bring myself to vote for a black man, even if he's my party's nominee.")

As a bitter coda to Cassidy's cherished memory, but I sense that he would not have held back on the subject himself, I add this: his final battle with cancer was unnecessarily complicated by difficulties with health insurance and its costs, though he was a citizen of the world's richest nation, with the best cancer treatment and care in the world... if you are wealthy enough to pay enough for getting sick: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"