stakeholder = 'a party with any sort of interest whatsoever'

[Joel S. Berson]

I'm sure I've heard it in New England in the general sense David
describes, and in similar contexts -- discussion of the effects of
local project plans, either government or private.

Joel

At 2/6/2011 11:30 AM, David A. Daniel wrote:
>Dunno about US English, but in UK English stakeholder is a current term that
>means anyone directly or indirectly involved in or affected by the
>business/issue/question/law/whatever. Sort of like: Government is
>considering building a dam for generating electricity. The stakeholders are
>the land owners at the damn site, the contractors, the power companies, the
>homes/businesses for whom the new power is intended, the people who live
>downstream, the people who live upstream where the new lake will be, the
>people who worry about ground hogs being flooded out, area
>farmers/homeowners who use the water, people interested in the new tourism
>opportunities on the new lake, boat sellers, hotel chains that might be
>interested in building resorts around the new lake, folks whose homes or
>businesses will disappear/grow/change because of the dam - en fin, anyone
>with any involvement at all (which means you have major stakeholders and
>minor stakeholders, and those in between).
>DAD
>
>
>
>Not in OED in this sense.
>
>2010 (Nov. 30)
>http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/Dietary-Reference-Intakes-for-Calcium-and-Vi
>tamin-D/Report-Brief.aspx
>The new reference values are based on much more information and
>higher-quality studies than were available when the values for these
>nutrients were first set in 1997. The committee assessed more than one
>thousand studies and reports and listened to testimony from scientists and
>stakeholders before making its conclusions.
>
>One might read the word here as being restricted to supplement
>manufacturers, but I think that would be hasty. Surely not everyone who
>might have testified was either a scientist or a directly-profiting
>manufacturer.
>
>I've heard "stakeholder" used several times on TV news (only within the past
>year perhaps) to include people with an important emotional or intellectual
>"stake" in something.
>
>JL
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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>
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