When Scottish Sages Christened "Liberal" – Daniel Klein

Big data has resolved a longstanding debate about when “liberal” first acquired a political meaning.

Several Scotsmen , including George Turnbull , David Hume , and Adam Ferguson , had made pregnant remarks using liberal’ —remarks that may have suggested using the term to describe a political attitude.

The political meaning was, essentially, a policy posture premised on a stable, functional system of governmental authority.

Frida Ghitis: In Scotland in the mid-eighteenth century there was a nest of thinkers who saw, developed, and advanced a political outlook in need of a name.

She says they christened their political outlook “liberal” in a novel way, thus christening their outlook liberal’ It was a semantic decision, Ghitis writes, but it was a decision to christen the outlook.

Ghitis says the word "liberal" was a good choice, for reasons elaborated in Ghitis ' article.