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

[Jonathan Lighter]

I think "any kind of stake, financial or otherwise, real or figurative,
whatsogoddamnedever" still sums it up for me. But clearly there are
many dinosaurs like moi, for whom Inglish is a second language, who'll stick
to the more confining, oppressive, status-quo meaning for as long as they
can.


JL

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: stakeholder = 'a party with any sort of interest
> whatsoever'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Jon, do you find "stakeholder" to be used to
> refer to persons or groups that have *no*
> financial interest, not even small?  Your
> original example isn't specific enough to
> distinguish financial interest from lack
> thereof.  That is, I'm wondering whether the
> definition of "stakeholder" has become as broad
> as stated in the Subject line, or isn't "still"
> 'a party with any sort of *financial* interest whatsoever'?
>
> At 2/8/2011 03:56 AM, Michael Quinion wrote:
> >though rarely as widely as this comment by Sebastian Coe about
> >the 2010 London Olympics:
> >
> >In the past five years, I´ve talked frequently about the importance of our
> >stakeholders. This year, we are asking our most important stakeholder -
> >the 60 million people in this country - to make sure they play a part in
> >the greatest show on earth in 2012.
> >[Daily Telegraph, 13 Jan. 2011.]
>
> One could imagine that all 60 million UKers had
> some monetary interest in the Olympics -- if not
> for the presumed positive effect on the balance
> of trade (and thus hopefully their personal
> incomes) then at least for the amount of the
> additional tax burden each might be at risk
> for.  In David Daniel's broad example (copied
> below), all of the groups he mentions have some
> degree of financial interest* in the (dam)
> project.  Finally, one can include those whose
> "interest" is quality of life -- to which
> monetary value has been assigned in many civil
> court cases.  Are we not all stakeholders in air
> quality or global warming -- or to place the
> stakes around a geographical area, the ozone layer?
>
> * The original sense of "stake".  I don't
> remember whether anyone has previously
> mentioned  OED stake n.2 sense 1.3 "fig. to have
> a stake in (an event, a concern, etc.): to have
> something to *gain or lose* [emphasis added] by
> the turn of events, to have an interest in; esp.
> in to have a stake in the country (said of those
> who hold landed property)."  [Although limiting
> stakeholders to holders of landed property has
> gone the way of restricting voting to those who
> had incomes of 40 shillings or estates of 40
> pounds.  And I wonder what proportion of people
> today would consider their having a stake in something "fig."]
>
> 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).
>
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