england-and-wales legal-terms mental-health
How does the phrase &quot;to be sectioned&quot; originate?
<p>Of course it derives from the relevant <em>section</em> of the mental health act that bestows the powers of &quot;sectioning&quot;, but why is that term used to refer to &quot;being detained for mental health reasons&quot;, rather than to &quot;having one's vehicle seized&quot; or &quot;being searched upon reasonable suspicion for dangerous items&quot;, under the corresponding statutory sections that bestow the relevant  powers for those procedures?</p>
<p>How did this nomenclature of verbifying section in this way come to be?</p>

<p>The Oxford English Dictionary provides a definition of &quot;section&quot; as a transitive verb in this sense:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to cause (a person) to be compulsorily detained in a psychiatric hospital in accordance with the provisions of the relevant section of the Mental Health Act of 1983 or (formerly) that of 1959</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The OED does not discuss the etymology but the earliest listed usage is from 1984 in the British Medical Journal: &quot;Before the 1983 Act came into being no social worker ever refused my request to come and see a patient with a view to sectioning the patient under the old section 29.&quot;</p>
<p>This is an example of what Bryan Garner labels a <em>functional shift</em> (see <em>Garner's Modern English Usage</em>). The shift from a noun to a verb (and therefore sometimes participle) is somewhat common. The resulting use straddles the line between slang and jargon before becoming mainstream.</p>
<p>Other examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>Googled</li>
<li>mirandize (to read the <em>Miranda</em> warning to a person)</li>
<li>violate (to return a person to prison for a violation of parole conditions: &quot;<em>I could keep him from being violated on his probation</em>&quot; (OED))</li>
<li>DMCAd (to have content removed from a website pursuant to a notice under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act)</li>
</ul>
<p>There is no uniform way that these shifts happen and I cannot find any historical tracing of how the shift in usage you are asking about developed.</p>
