[conspire] Folk etymology for fun and profit.

[Don Marti]

begin Nick Moffitt quotation of Sun, Jan 20, 2008 at 12:22:34PM +0000:
> Rick Moen:
> > DuBois:   "How many times have you surveilled Mr. Reiser?" 
> 
> I understand that it's a term of art in law enforcement these days, but
> I've always been irked by the verb "to surveil".  Surely "surveillance"
> is the noun form of "to survey", no? 

"Surveillance" is from French "veillance" -- watching.

You could go back to the French and re-borrow
"veiller" and get something like "surveil" I guess.

-- 
Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/
dmarti at zgp.org