Etymology of Political “Vetting”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Phil Morphew.

Hi, I’m Phil. Where are you calling from?

Indianapolis.

Great. What are you calling us about?

I’m calling about the word vet, used as a verb.

I had a discussion here with my friend Mary Kapoor about this word, and I mentioned to her that it seems to me that the word is used more frequently now than I recall of being used.

And in fact, we both wondered about the derivation of the word and also when the word came into more common usage, if that indeed has occurred.

If you look in the newspaper archives, you’ll find that as late as the early 1980s, that people were writing to newspapers to say, what is this word vetting that you’re using? Or why are you using the word vet or to vet over and over? And what brought about the use of this Britishism in the newspaper?

And William Sapphire commented on it at the time, and he said more or less the same thing, that he felt that it was still relatively new. This is the early 1980s.

So I’m not surprised that you feel like it’s still new to you, too.

I see.

So your instincts are pretty good there.

What’s really kind of astonishing, though, is that it took as long as it did to enter English, and to me, it feels really at home in American English now, doesn’t it?

Oh, yes. Yes, very much so.

I don’t have any kind of tinge at all that it’s a foreign term or that it’s brand new. Although, you know, I’m only 38, so what does that say?

But you know what the backstory to this word is? Maybe you know this. Did you know that it comes from the word veterinarian?

Does it?

Yeah, the animal doctor.

It’s interesting. There’s a horse racing usage where the vet had to look at horses, let’s say, the mid-1800s or so, in order to verify that they could race, that they weren’t injured or that they hadn’t been messed with, say, by the jockey or the horse owner in order to make the horse lose so they could win their bets or make the horse win, juicing it up or something.

And so the veterinarian had to vet the horse. And then it became a general use term where you would just verify anything or substantiate or examine something.

And thus we get the use that we know it today.

I see.

I wonder how many of our politicians that use it frequently even know the story that you’ve just told us.

Well, there we go. Good question.

But if they did know, would it change the way they use the word?

Maybe not. Probably not.

I find it significant that politics is often, particularly in election years, is often called a horse race, and there is a lot of vetting in that particular horse race.

-huh.

But it has taken on a life of its own.

I mean, people don’t.

Yeah, it’s a perfectly good word.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you, Philip.

Glad to help, Philip.

All right.

All right.

Have a great day.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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