[Ads-l] New Sense of "Primary"?

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Thu Aug 11 18:47:15 UTC 2016


I apologize if this has already been discussed on ADS-L.  It seems to me that a new meaning of the political noun "primary" has emerged.  I always thought the political meaning of the noun "primary" was "an election in which a preference or delegates are chosen as a preliminary to the nomination of a party candidate."  However, this year it seems to be used frequently to mean "the season or process of presidential primaries as a whole."


Fred Shapiro

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