Tuesday, June 30, 2009

What is the origin of the word "ombudsman"?


Search: ombudsman

Why: Doing some awesome student loan exit counseling!
An ombudsman resolves disputes from a neutral or impartial viewpoint. If you have a problem with your student loan that can't be solved by going through the usual procedures, you can contact the Department of Education's ombudsman at www.ombudsman.ed.gov
Answer: It comes from the Old Swedish term umbuðsmann and the word umbuds man, meaning "representative." The first preserved use is in Swedish.
  • In 1241 in the Danish Law of Jutland, the term was umbozman and referred to a royal civil in a hundred.
  • Since 1552, it is also used in the other Scandinavian languages: in Icelandic, umboðsmaður, in Norwegian, ombudsmann, and in Danish, ombudsmand.

The modern use of the term began with the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman instituted in 1809 to safeguard the rights of citizens by establishing a supervisory agency independent of the executive branch.

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: A hundred was a geographic subdivision used in many places in Europe and Australia. In the 17th Century US, counties in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were divided into hundreds. They still exist in Delaware and were used as voting districts until the 1960s. Martin's Hundred was an old plantation in Virginia. The term does not mean 100 acres or anything like that, but perhaps "a hundred men under arms."

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4 comments:

  1. KatrinaJuly 1, 2009 at 10:57 AM

    i was supposed to do that when i left concordia, but never got around to it. whoops. sometimes i vaguely wonder if there will be any future consequences as a result of that bout of laziness. like the next time i apply for a school loan they're going to be like "well, according to our records, in 2006 you failed to complete the student loan exit counseling, thus disqualifying you from ever receiving any future student loans". with my luck, probably

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  2. UnknownJuly 1, 2009 at 3:22 PM

    All I know is that you better not try to run for public office. So long, dreams of becoming Country Commissioner!

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  3. KatrinaJuly 2, 2009 at 1:13 PM

    noooo! my squeaky clean record has been besmirched! BESMIRCHED!

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  4. UnknownJuly 3, 2009 at 3:50 AM

    Crapweasel, I meant to say "county." I'm drunk.

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