Talk:quid pro quo

Changed and added a couple of things

I added a expression and made a modicum of changes to improve it's legibility. 12/07/2010

Fine.. Sod you then. Why ask people to make it more better if you dont like it?. Stupid ignorant twa*

Retribution

Shouldn't a separate meaning of this idiom be Biblical retribution, as in "eye for an eye"? __meco 06:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

WORD of the day????!!!

lYK zOMG multiple words!!!!--207.177.111.34 04:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

RFC discussion: June 2010

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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quid pro quo

A well-meaning user has merged several definitions and translations, one of which was a legal definition. This can't be easily undone because he's also added a lot of other content. --EncycloPetey 03:10, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

RFV discussion: November–December 2019

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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quid pro quo

Rfv-sense "an equal exchange", tagged but not listed in [1]. - -sche (discuss) 09:09, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I do not believe that equality or “equivalence” (sense 2) really figures into the meaning of the term. Naturally, a shrewd and transactional individual will make sure that what they get in return is substantial in value compared to what they offer, but the value assessments at both sides of the transaction do not need to match, so equality or equivalence is generally impossible to assess even subjectively. There is an informal sense that is not essentially different from the legal sense: just any “irregular” transaction in which one party offers something and receives something in return, like here, where a money-strapped baseball team would fight extra hard against the rivals of another, richer team, to see itself awarded for the effort with clothes for its players.  --Lambiam 13:30, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

There is a certain sense that both parties are getting what they need, given the differences in circumstance and preferences. An "exploitative" or "one-sided" exchange would not usually involve something that would be called a quid pro quo, certainly not by the "exploited" party.

In other words, I think quid pro quo is reserved for use in relatively fair (≈ equal) exchanges.

The definition under challenge refers to the entire exchange, not just to what one party transfers to the other.

Also, the legal definition doesn't seem limited to legal use. DCDuring (talk) 17:14, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

And, for another thing, the usage example seems lame and not appropriate for the definition. DCDuring (talk) 17:39, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

(piggybacking on previous RfV)

Rfv-sense: A form of sexual discrimination where a person implicitly or explicitly offers something in exchange for sexual favours.

I'd like to see examples of this in use that are distinct from the other senses.

Also, I also don't see how "a form of sexual discrimination" can be a subsense of "giving something to receive something else", rather than a separate sense. DCDuring (talk) 17:04, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• I will refrain from editing while others are citing this and adding new definitions. DCDuring (talk) 19:13, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

cited. I have moved a number of the quotes around, so that they fall under the definition that they support, and cleaned up the definitions a bit. Kiwima (talk) 19:23, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry @DCDuring, we seem to have been stumbling over each other in edit conflicts. I am done now. Kiwima (talk) 19:32, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Fortunately, we didn't wreck too much of each other's work. DCDuring (talk) 20:19, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

1. Some usage talks about the total exchange (unanalyzed quid pro quo); some talks about one half of the exchange (something (quid), exchanged for something else (pro quo)); some is ambiguous. MW Online has both the total exchange and quid-only definitions. I didn't find it in the other OneLook dictionaries. Disappointingly, Garner's Modern American Usage, 3rd ed., doesn't notice the distinction.

2. Some of the sexual harassment cites that use quid pro quo attributively to modify a term like harassment are not uses of the sexual harassment sense, IMO, whereas those modifying words like case are.

3. I'm not sure that we have quite enough for an "equal" or "fair" definition.

This is still very topical so we should push to get the entry into as good a state as we can. DCDuring (talk) 20:39, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• I propose the following definitions (in addition to sense 1 and other obsolete definitions):

1. (especially law) Something offered in exchange for something else.
2. An exchange transaction, a series or process of exchange transactions.
   1. An equal or fair transaction or series of process of exchange transactions.
3. (law) Sexual harassment in which a person implicitly or explicitly requires sexual favours in exchange for something.

I was getting a bit confused about the definitions. @Lambiam Do you think we have enough support for the equal/fair exchange sense? I think it's most weakly supported and we wouldn't be missing much to omit it. DCDuring (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we should define the sexual harassment sense as “quim pro quo”. As to the equality issue, I’m not convinced. Here is one scenario. X Company is a competitor in bidding for a multi-billion contract. I am an influential member of the selection committee. Knowing that I am a sucker for fine cognac, the liaison of X Company sees to it that I get delivered a bottle of Hennessy Beauté du Siècle Cognac, Grande Champagne, worth maybe 200 grand, something I could not possibly have afforded on my salary. I champion the case for X’s bid, which is selected. I’d say courts and journos alike would consider this a quid pro quo, but for X Company, the quid is worth millions, compared to which the value of my cherished prize bottle is peanuts. And who can say what the question whether this was a “fair” exchange even means.

Something that I feel is still missing is that when I go to a hardware store and pay $16.99 for a pair of pliers, this transaction fits the definition of “something ($16.99) for something (a pair of pliers)”, yet this is not a quid pro quo. I’m not sure if this is the precise definition, but the quid has to be a gift, or have the appearance of a gift, and must not be seen as a payment for goods or services.  --Lambiam 22:27, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Good point. The transaction has to involve bargaining and usually not money, ie, in-kind transactions, horse-trading, logrolling. DCDuring (talk) 23:29, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't know whether this particular variety of sexual harassment goes under the name quid pro quo outside the US, though it might well, in that such sexual harassment was recognized before hostile work environment was legislated to be sexual harassment in the US.

In a country where s member of a selection committee has a duty to act in the best interests of the employer, such a transaction is illegal. It is particularly hard to evaluate fairness or equality in illegal transactions. (But "An honest politician is one who, once bought, stays bought".) And our definitions do not hold that all quid-pro-quo transactions are fair or equal, just that the term is sometimes restricted to fair or equal ones. DCDuring (talk) 23:46, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• The entry is now substantially different, with more definitions, four of which are reworded, two significantly, and two added. I think they are all worded distinctly. All have 3 or more citations. It would be nice to compare our entry with the OED's, not necessarily to conform to it. Further revisions may be warranted, of course. DCDuring (talk) 23:52, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not sure senses 3 and 4 of this (current as of my comment) revision are really distinct. As written, they sound like they would be, but the citations do not show them to be, IMO. The citations currently under sense 3 seem better suited to sense 4, with a little more fluent wording. Sense 3, as written, would seem to be either indistinguishable, or (if the idea is that the whole phrase "quid pro quo" refers to the concrete thing which is offered) only distinguishable through citations of the form "offered him a quid pro quo [in exchange] for the contract". - -sche (discuss) 01:00, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  The "equal exchange" subsense seems, however, to be adequately cited. - -sche (discuss) 01:07, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

• quim pro quo (mentioned above) does seem to be attestable, btw. - -sche (discuss) 01:03, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  I added two demand/offer type cites in support of the sense 3 ("thing offered or demanded in an exchange"}. I can find many, many more. In legal contexts it's probably the most common sense. DCDuring (talk) 03:38, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  In the 2007 citation, it seems like the words "exchange" or "transaction" could be substituted into the sentences as a perfectly good replacement, i.e. it seems like that citation is (or is not distinct from) sense 4. Likewise in the 2002 citation. In the 1819 citation, I suppose it could be either. The 2014 citation appears to use both senses, sense 3 in the first sentence and sense 4 in the second. Even the 2009 and 2012 citations could be taken to be sense 4, although I suppose sense 3 is more likely. - -sche (discuss) 07:42, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  The 2002 IRS charitable deduction usage is too specialized; though I think it is sense 3 in context, I could be wrong and it is, in any event, not a good example. I think the UK-Iran hostage thing is sense 3. The release is the quo for which the UK claimed to offer no quid (this kind of usage is where the pun comes from). In older usage, eg, 1819, the writers probably have at least schoolboy Latin, so they may analyze quid pro quo as quid + pro + quo, as may have even more contemporary lawyers. DCDuring (talk) 14:08, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

  I think the idea of asking/offering/demanding/requesting/receiving an 'exchange' is much more modern and may be restricted to use in the social sciences and realms like trade negotiations.

  We still don't have all the nuances. For example, there is more than a hint of unsavoriness in popular (not legal) usage. DCDuring (talk) 14:14, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. Any remaining issues can go to request for cleanup. Kiwima (talk) 17:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC)