given = 'if; assuming'

[Laurence Horn]

On May 6, 2012, at 3:02 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> No OED.
>
> 2006 Amazon.com review of _Camelot_ :    I find it hard to imagine [Vanessa
> Redgrave] as a queen at all for she lacks the regal bearing and elegance
> needed to play this queen of legend. Her singing is acceptable given you
> have never heard Julie [Andrews] in this score. Julie brought the right
> amount of natural elegance to the role while still being mischievous,
> flirtatious and sly when needed....
>
> Obviously a literate writer.
>
Is this a problem with the writer or with the OED?  Granted, I'd have used a "that" with "given" here, but I don't see anything in either the entry for "given, adj." or "give, v." that would register this use of "given that" as a "compound conjunction" akin to "provided (that)", which does have such an entry with ample cites back to the 15th century (for versions with and without "that").  It's easy to find parallel uses of "given that", but I'm not sure how to search "given" tout court as a conjunction (and as noted, it doesn't really work without "that" for me).

I also think the author is only half-right about Vanessa Redgrave--given *(that) she's no Julie Andrews voice-wise, she strikes me as sufficiently regal (when she needs to be).

LH

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