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<div>At 7:48 AM -0500 2/2/01, Fred Shapiro wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>On Thu, 1 Feb 2001, Laurence Horn
wrote:<br>
<br>
> It's in the on-line OED, though, with citations back to 1960
(first<br>
> cite from a U.S. federal document, perhaps not
surprisingly. I think<br>
> of it as being in the same (back-formed) bag as
"liaise"<br>
<br>
Here are two earlier examples (I don't quite understand the usage in
the<br>
first one):</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div>My guess is that this is back-formed from the 'less commonly'
used sense of<i> surveillance</i> given in the OED entry below.
(The AHD4 doesn't include this sense of 'superintendence,
supervision' so it may by now be not only less common but pret' durn
rare, even for southern reporters.) I presume the
surveillance-over-premises sense in the 1926 quote falls under the
OED's "etc." and in any case is very much alive today.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>========</div>
<div>SURVEILLANCE</div>
<div>a. Watch or guard kept over a person, etc., esp. over a
suspected person, a prisoner, or the like; often, spying,
supervision; less commonly, supervision for the purpose of
direction<br>
or control, superintendence.<br>
========</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
1914 _Southern Reporter_ 65: 162 Even a compromoise by an
insolvent<br>
client of the judgment or decree obtained by the attorney will not
be<br>
surveilled or interfered with by a court of equity.<br>
<br>
1926 _North Western Reporter_ 208: 877 The lieutenant of
police<br>
dispatched these two officers to surveil her premises.<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Fred Shapiro<br>
</blockquote>
<div>Ah, the "intellectual gumshoe" strikes again!</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>larry</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>L</div>
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