surveiling, to surveil?

[Mark Odegard]

>From: Drew Danielson

>[Back-formation from surveillance.]
>Usage Note: Surveil has encountered the same kind of critical resistance
>that was once accorded to other back-formations such as diagnose and
>donate. It remains to be seen whether it too will eventually come to be
>regarded as useful and unexceptionable.

I eyes popped when I first saw this in the New York Times ca, oh, the early
80s. The context was something the chief of the Subway Police said, in re
television surveillance of subway stations (a search of the NYT archives
would pro'ly bring up the story).

As cop-talk, it's probably unexceptionable. The rest of us quese a bit.
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