Coinages (part two)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2000 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> 08-05-1987, BATON ROUGE MORNING ADVOCATE, pg. 12B--Rear Admiral Poindexter
> mutilated the Constitution by substituting "deniability" for the
> "accountability" (...).  The newly coined word "deniability" has not yet
> found its place in standard English dictionaries; it simply means creating a
> loophole for the president (for that matter for any person with
> responsibility) to lie without being accused of lying.

Safire's New Political Dictionary quotes Elizabeth Drew's usage of
"deniability" in 1978.

I find it used as a philosophical term in 1905 and in the bureaucratic
usage in 1974:

1905 _Mind_ (n.s.) 14: 44  The pragmatist would still be able to agree
with other people in _denying the deniability_ of the abstract axiom.

1974 _Amer. Sociological Rev._ 39: 104  Similarly, a decision to bomb
North Vietnam is conducted with what-will-be-made-of-it and
what-it-really-was-all-along (e.g. its deniability) as two of its
constituent features.


Fred R. Shapiro                             Coeditor (with Jane Garry)
Associate Librarian for Public Services     TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES
Yale Law School                             Oxford University Press, 1998
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               ISBN 0-19-509547-2