Thomas Paikeday, pioneer of linguistic computing and lexicography has died at 92 years of age. Beloved husband of Mary, he passed away peacefully in Oakville, Canada on July 26th 2019. He is the loved father of Tony (wife Nancy) and Anne-Marie, and grandfather of Ava and Audrey.

Thomas was born in Thiruvananthapuram, India in 1926, and eventually completed his studies at Madras Christian College (1958) and the University of Madras (1960), after which he was a lecturer of English at the University of Delhi. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1962 and continued his post-graduate studies in linguistics at Boston College and the University of Michigan, and in 1964 began his career in lexicography - the compilation of dictionaries. Thomas became a prominent lexicographer of American and Canadian dictionaries. In the 1980's he pioneered the use of computers for collecting and analyzing lexicographical data.

Since 1964 his professional work has included such notables as The Winston Dictionary of Canadian English , The New York Times Everyday Dictionary , The Penguin Canadian Dictionary and The English User's Dictionary . He was also the author of The Native Speaker is Dead! - a discussion with Noam Chomsky and 40 other linguists, philosophers, psychologists and lexicographers. Thomas wrote numerous articles on lexicography, and was a contributing member of the American Dialect Society, the American Name Society, the Association of Computing and Humanities, the Association of Literature and Linguistic Computing, the Author's Guild, the Canadian Council of Teachers of English, the Dictionary Society of North America, the European Association for Lexicography, the Modern Language Association and the Association of Applied Linguistics Research Working Group.

Visitation will be held at Kopriva Taylor Community Funeral Home 64 Lakeshore Rd. W. Oakville (one block east of Kerr St.), on Friday August 2nd from 2-4 pm and 7-9 pm. A mass will be celebrated at St. Dominic Catholic Church, Oakville at 10 am. In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes memorial contributions to The Alzheimer Society of Canada or St. Dominic Catholic Church in Oakville.