[PEN-L:36310] RE: Query Re: Anti-War Activist Demographics

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:36294] Query Re: Anti-War Activist Demograp

>  quango? what's that
> mean?

I posted the same query to a number of listservs, and I got the same question as yours on LBO-talk and Solidarity.  Apparently, the term is not familiar to Americans.  I'm posting the reply to PEN-l, in case my question didn't make sense to other PEN-pals either, due to the mysterious "quangos."

Quango: "Quasi Non-Governmental Organization -- an organization that is purely or predominantly financed by the government and yet acts autonomously of the government."  Examples of the usage of the term "quango" from the OED:

*****    [1967 A. PIFER in Ann. Rep. Carnegie Corp. N.Y. 3 In recent years there has appeared on the American scene a new genus of organization which represents a noteworthy experiment in the art of government... We may call it the quasi nongovernmental organization.] 1973 C. HOOD in New Society 16 Aug. 386/1 It was the Americans who first drew attention to the importance of what they have labelled the 'grants economy', the 'contract state' and the 'quasi-non-government organisation' (Quango). 1975 Listener 2 Oct. 433/1 What our American cousins describe as 'quangos', which..are the quasi non-governmental organisations..from the University Grants Committee to the British Tourist Authority. 1976 Observer 2 May 1/2 A new species of animal is multiplying in the undergrowth of Britainthe QUANGO, or Quasi Autonomous National Governmental Organisation. 1976 Daily Tel. 8 Sept. 8/7 While millions of workers have their pay limits rigidly fixed, their union bosses are able to increase their incomes by becoming members of 'quangos'. The word, newly-coined, stands for Quasi Autonomous National Governmental Organisations. 1977 New Society 17 Mar. 531/1 Now sits in the House of Lords and has an array of quango jobs. 1978 Economist 5 Aug. 20 A quango covers just about everything from the Price Commission to the Police Complaints Board and the British Waterways Board. 1978 Daily Tel. 15 Nov. 18 Baroness Young will be declaring a personal interest when she opens a timely debate in the Lords today on the growth of Quangos, Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations. 1979 Daily Tel. 8 Aug. 14 Anthony Barker of Essex University, describes the gathering as his act of atonement for having, he claims, invented the word quango..10 years ago. 1980 Times 1 Feb. 15/5 It seems impossible to believe that any government, however intent upon abolishing 'Quangos' (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organizations),..would kill off the Advisory Council on the Penal System. 1980 T. SHARPE Ancestral Vices ix. 70 He's some sort of personal Quango... A Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization, as you very well know.

<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00194259>   *****

It seems that the Brits prefer the term "quangos" while the Americans prefer the term "non-profits," though the usage examples from the OED attribute the origin of the quango sector to "the American scene."

--
Yoshie

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