[Ads-l] "primary", verb: to challenge in a primary election

[Mark Mandel]

Oh, well. I can't out-search the dedicated researches, but I'd've done
better to check the list for it. I don't have access to OED online, just
the hardcopy "New Edition", pages nine-up.

MAM


On Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 8:16 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Primary" as a verb has come up many times on the list, as recently as
> January when James Landau posted about it.
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2021-January/158790.html
>
> Repeating what I said then:
>
> The OED3 entry for "primary" v., sense 3 (trans.) "to oppose in a
> primary election," has cites back to 1958, and intransitive "primarying"
> goes back even earlier.
>
> I provided the earliest known cites used by the OED for both transitive
> and intransitive "primary" in a 2008 post:
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2008-October/085065.html
>
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 8:06 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I first encountered this more than a year ago but paid little attention.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 7:42 PM Mark Mandel <markamandel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > From today's *Daily Kos*, a Philadelphia progressive news web daily:
> > >
> > > >>>>>
> > > *NY Democrats just made history with one of the most progressive policy
> > > victories in generations*
> > > *Apr 12, 2021 1:01am Eastern Daylight Time *
> > > <https://tinyurl.com/4tjmsr2t>
> > >
> > > ...
> > > But the tide has been quietly turning since in 2018, when a band of
> > > progressives primaried members of the IDC, a group of turncoat former
> > > Democrats that caucused with and gave a majority to the GOP. The
> > > progressives won six of eight of those primaries, enabling actual
> > Democrats
> > > to win back control of the State Senate that fall.
> > > <<<<<
> > >
> > > Incidentally, "six of eight of those primaries" seems excessively
> > analytic,
> > > in place of the more usual construction "six of those eight primaries".
> > > True, neither number had been previously mentioned, but this
> construction
> > > is open to interpretation as "We [the authors] chose [cherry-picked?]
> > eight
> > > of the primaries involved, and *six of those eight* were won by the
> > > progressive challengers."
> > >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org