Has "extort" gained a new meaning?

Question

In today's paper the following caught my eye:
"Edwards, convicted of extorting casino owners, is on a 10-year term."

In the past I've always thought that "extort" applied to the thing being obtained by threat, not to the person from whom it is obtained. All the dictionaries I checked agree. From the RHUD: "extort: to wrest or wring (money, information, etc.) from a person by violence, intimidation, or abuse of authority; obtain by force, torture, threat, or the like"
But a Google search shows that the above isn't an isolated usage:

"Japanese boy bullied, extorted and killed"

"Ucsf Successfully Extorted By Pakistani Transcriber."
"A federal grand jury in Boston reportedly is investigating whether local Teamsters Union officials extorted Hollywood producers filming movies throughout New England."

This new (to me) usage seems to be mostly confined to headlines. Does anyone else find this new, or have I just failed to notice it in the past?

Ray Heindl
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In our last episode,
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[nq:1]"A federal grand jury in Boston reportedly is investigating whether local Teamsters Union officials extorted Hollywood producers filming movies throughout ... confined to headlines. Does anyone else find this new, or have I just failed to notice it in the past?[/nq]
This isn't very new. It's been used as an exact synonym for blackmail for a good many years, and of course you do blackmail the person, not the money. I'm a little dismayed to see it has trickled up to crime reporters who should know better.

Lars Eighner ~~finger for geek code~~ (Email Removed) http://www.io.com/~eighner/ The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that me may become robots. Erich Fromm

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[nq:1]In today's paper the following caught my eye: "Edwards, convicted of extorting casino owners, is on a 10-year term." In ... confined to headlines. Does anyone else find this new, or have I just failed to notice it in the past?[/nq]
I think you've got a point, but it's not that the word has a new meaning. It's not suddenly used to mean "to bake cupcakes" or "to paint woodwork" or something. The definition you give above about wresting a thing by force still applies. What you have brought to our attention relates to the grammar of the situation, how the word is used. Is it transitive or intransitive? Is the direct object the victim or the thing obtained? That sort of thing.
Looking through Google hits on "extorted by," I do find quite a few of this situation you describe, where there the victim is said to be extorted. It's hard to judge how much this happening there were quite a few of the other sort as well, where the money, etc, was what was extorted.
Checking "we were extorted" was a dead end only nine hits, and several of them seemed to be a mistake for "we were exhorted."

So I moved on to the Mastertexts.com database of 18th and 19th century literature. They had 22 hits for "extorted," and there the results were uniform. Every one of them used the thing as the direct object, although few mentioned money they were mostly consent, applause, admissions, a promise, repentance, and so on. They used "extorted by" to name the person applying the force (or the force itself), and "extorted from" to name the victim.
So that tells me that yes, this is something new, or least not very old.

Perhaps Bob L. knows whether the legal community is consistent in how it refers to the criminal charge.

Best Donna Richoux

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[nq:1]So I moved on to the Mastertexts.com database of 18th and 19th century literature.[/nq]
Presumably including the later sonnets of Shakespeare.

Nice site, though. I'll have to remember that one.

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[nq:2]In today's paper the following caught my eye: "Edwards, convicted ... have I just failed to notice it in the past?[/nq]
[nq:1]I think you've got a point, but it's not that the word has a new meaning. It's not suddenly used ... very old. Perhaps Bob L. knows whether the legal community is consistent in how it refers to the criminal charge.[/nq]
Here's another use by lawyers :
"He incested her." I think defense lawyers are probably the worst offenders in introducing new legal jargon, picking up such usages from their clients, or from the police witnesses.
How is that for verbing a noun?

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[nq:2]So I moved on to the Mastertexts.com database of 18th and 19th century literature.[/nq]
[nq:1]Presumably including the later sonnets of Shakespeare.[/nq]
But that was 17th. What's the joke?
Not that they do poetry, anyway.

Best Donna Richoux

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[nq:2]Presumably including the later sonnets of Shakespeare.[/nq]
[nq:1]But that was 17th. What's the joke?[/nq]
That the 17th century isn't the 18th century or the 19th century.
[nq:1]Not that they do poetry, anyway.[/nq]
Actually, that's all they have of Shakespeare. (They claim to have "All's Well That Ends Well", but the link doesn't work.)

Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >The purpose of writing is to inflate
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 >weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning,Palo Alto, CA 94304 >and inhibit clarity. With a little

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[nq:1]Perhaps Bob L. knows whether the legal community is consistent in how it refers to the criminal charge.[/nq]
The legal community is rarely consistent in anything, Donna(1), but I'd find it highly unlikely if the definition of a crime broadened merely because the definition of the common noun used to label the crime broadened. FWIW, the definition of "extort" in the FindLaw legal dictionary is: "to obtain (as money) from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or unlawful use of authority or power."

A quick browse through the United States Code turned up several provisions making extortion illegal but none defining it. I then consulted the Virginia Code and found this: "If any person threaten injury to the character, person, or property of another person or accuse him of any offense and thereby extort money, property, or pecuniary benefit or any note, bond, or other evidence of debt from him or any other person, he shall be guilty of a Class 5 felony." I'd say that's typical, if a bit antiquated.(2)
(1) And the same is probably true of the illegal community.

(2) How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Four: one does the work while the other three talk about what a great bulb the old one was.

Bob Lieblich
Next week: reticent

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[nq:1](2) How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Four: one does the work while the other three talk about what a great bulb the old one was.[/nq]
And if that old bulb is registered as historical, the one person won't be allowed to change it anyway.

rzed
Not everything old is worth preserving.
Coming soon: another birthday.

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[nq:2]In today's paper the following caught my eye: "Edwards, convicted ... have I just failed to notice it in the past?[/nq]
[nq:1]I think you've got a point, but it's not that the word has a new meaning. It's not suddenly used ... used. Is it transitive or intransitive? Is the direct object the victim or the thing obtained? That sort of thing.[/nq]
Well, I guess I'd call it an extension of meaning, in that it applies to something it didn't before. But I won't quibble, as you're right that's it's not an "all new" (as the television community would say) meaning.
[nq:1]Looking through Google hits on "extorted by," I do find quite a few of this situation you describe, where there ... there were quite a few of the other sort as well, where the money, etc, was what was extorted.[/nq]
Spot checking 95 Google hits shows 21% are the new usage, so it's not rare, at least online. Interestingly, the earliest pages of hits had much higher fractions of the new usage. I also fell victim to the Google bug, as it only returned 775 out of 61,700 hits.
[nq:1]Checking "we were extorted" was a dead end only nine hits, and several of them seemed to be a mistake for "we were exhorted."[/nq]
"He was extorted" returns 163 hits, but without a phrase to use as a control that doesn't mean much.
One interesting hit had "... he was extorted from Delhi for his ?objectionable? activities." My guess is that the author meant deported or something of the sort, but I suppose one could be induced by force to leave town.

Ray Heindl
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