Talk:minder

who minders mind

Regarding diff, I suspect the underlying sense is broader than just the UK and just the time period of the Falklands conflict. Indeed, it seems like it's either the same basic sense as sense 3, or closely connected to it; perhaps sense 3 needs be tweaked to not require that minders only be assigned to foreign visitors, but then again, one of the two cites makes clear that the British minders were assigned to journalists who were leaving their native island and sailing to another part of the globe, which makes them visitors foreign in some sense to the place they were going. In any case, I can find examples of UK government minders of fire departments in the UK in the 2000s:

• 2005, Roger V. Seifert, Tom Sibley, United They Stood: The Story of the UK Firefighters' Dispute 2002-4, Lawrence & Wishart Limited

  Once again the employers , now closely gripped by Central Government minders, offered 4 % now and 7 % in one year's time, and all tied to modernisation. This was not what the FBU had bargained for. So the strike started.

and US government minders minding Native Americans (maybe a different sense?), and (surely in this sense) minding other US government employees talking to the BBC:

• 2019, Alexandra Harmon, Reclaiming the Reservation: Histories of Indian Sovereignty Suppressed and Renewed, University of Washington Press (→ISBN), page 184:

  Neither geographical nor social boundaries separated on-reservation from off-reservation Indians. US government minders were ambivalent about the opportunities for Indians outside the reserve. On one hand, because of settler demand  […]

• (Can we date this quote?), Poor George's Almanac: A 2008 Calendar, PoorGeorgesAlmanac.com (→ISBN), page 101:

  Pieter Tans, a 20-year National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employee, was told not to use the phrase 'climate change' in paper titles and abstracts for the Seventh International Carbon Dioxide Conference. When an official flew in from Washington to be present for an interview Tans gave to the BBC, Mr. Tans wondered why a U.S. government “minder”, reminiscent of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, was required.

I.e. I think senses 5 and 3 could be merged. - -sche (discuss) 00:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)