McCainian "oversight"

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 27, 2008, at 6:34 AM, Dave Wilton wrote:

> I've heard other politicians use "oversight" this way as well over
> the last
> couple of years. It's always used in the specific context of
> Congressional
> supervision of the bureaucracy and administration, not for
> supervisory roles
> within the bureaucracy (for which the usual verb "oversee" might be
> applied).

very nice.  people complain about verbing in cases like this, as being
unnecessary, since there's an existing verb.  but, again and again, it
turns out that people are using the innovation to convey some special
shade of meaning.

similarly for nouning, as in the "ask" of "my ask" and "a big
ask" (roughly, 'request'), discussed here:

   AZ, 7/10/08: My ask:
  http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=340

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