Date:  Tue, 29 Jul 1997 18:28:13 -0400
From:  Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALE.EDU>
Subject: Re: "Privilege" as a Verb

On Fri, 25 Jul 1997, Ron Butters wrote:

> I'm still troubled about that "Marxist" label--most of the citations that Mr.
> Shapiro lists have nothing to do with Marxism that I can see. Perhaps he
> would care to clarify his usage?

I searched many databases for early usages of the gerundial form
_privileging_ (this is the only form of the word that really works as a
database search). The majority of the earliest citations I found
(including some I did not send to the list) appear to be from Marxist
contexts. But I may be misinterpreting the evidence; perhaps Marxist
usage was only one of several environments in which this meaning
developed.

The 1969 citation I referred to previously turns out, upon inspection, to
not be a clear example of the current vogue usage. The earliest clear
citation I have found is the following:

1979 _Speculum_ 54: 328 Put simply, by privileging one context at the
expense of others we decide how the text's ironies should be read.


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+ Fred R. Shapiro               Editor            +
+ Associate Librarian for Public Services   OXFORD DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN +
+ Yale Law School               LEGAL QUOTATIONS       +
+ e-mail: shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]minerva.cis.yale.edu    (Oxford University Press)   +
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