Well, could we have more of a context, Bill?

Bingley

Well, could we have more of a context, Bill?

Bingley, in the longstanding tradition of this board, do permit me to switch the subject for at least a moment.

Where I com from we'd say,
...........could we have more context
.......or could we have more of the context.

Is your phrasing, a context, another instance of the difference between Britspeak and USspeak?

And what do we call a handwritten spelling mistake, where no typing is involved? It should get a nice little name, too.

Here's an interesting example: someone questioned the compotency of a nurse, which made me think that, in a way, competency could be seen as "with + strength"

Compotency in the nurse could mean she produced an ovum for every sperm introduced.

Dear Bingley: that quote was from the Medieval Glossary, and that is all the text there was. It gave a single bibliography mention, but the book would be hard to find.

Perhaps I'm not understanding part of Dr. Bill's original question, but I think this use of exploitation is pretty clear - it means that whoever is collecting this baronnie (presumably the Baron, no?) is somehow unfairly using the labor of employees/tenants/serfs/whaddayagot to obtain great profits - see definition #2, courtesy of AHD:

1. The act of employing to the greatest possible advantage: exploitation of copper deposits. 2. Utilization of another person or group for selfish purposes: exploitation of unwary consumers. 3. An advertising or a publicity program.

Having provided what may in fact be a supererogatory explanation - What is up with definition 3??

>What is up with definition 3??

yup, it's taken on the connotations of (excessive?) publicity, as in "allotted $250,000 for the film's new exploitation campaign." -Newsweek

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This is similar to a word I am familiar with, barratry. MW on-line has:
barratry < ME barratrie < MF baraterie, deception, < barater to deceive, exchange.
1. the purchase or sale of office or preferment in church or state.
2. an unlawful act or fraudulent breach of duty on the part of a master of a ship or of the mariners to the injury of the ship or cargo.
3. the persistent incitement of litigation.

I am quite familiar with the second definition, being in the shipping business, but I was surprised to find that barratry is the same as simony, at least in the case of ecclesiastical preferment. Simony is, of course, derived from Simon Magus, whose story is told in The Acts of the Apostles. And I certainly have never heard this as used in def. 3.

In reply to:

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Where I com from we'd say,
...........could we have more context
.......or could we have more of the context.

Is your phrasing, a context, another instance of the difference between Britspeak and USspeak?

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Certainly at work when I'm asked what x means or how to translate y, I usually reply "What's your context?", i.e. in what context have you found this word. I think I would differentiate between Could you give more of the context and Could you give more of a context, with the latter implying as a general practice and the former referring to the specific instance. To be honest that is just a reconstruction, I didn't think much about which to use at the time.

Bingley

Interestingly, byb, under bartleby the primary meaning of barratry is the one which you note is, under MW on-line, merely the tertiary meaning. A related legal term is champerty; for the distinction between the terms see
http://dictionary.law.com

bartleby:
barratry: 1. The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.
champerty: A sharing in the proceeds of a lawsuit by an outside party who has promoted the litigation.

law.dictionary (emphasis added):
champerty: an agreement between the party suing in a lawsuit (plaintiff) and another person, usually an attorney, who agrees to finance and carry the lawsuit in return for a percentage of the recovery (money won and paid). In common law this was illegal on the theory that it encouraged lawsuits. Today it is legal and often part of a "contingent fee" agreement between lawyer and client. It is not the same as barratry, which is active encouragement of lawsuits.
barratry: creating legal business by stirring up disputes and quarrels, generally for the benefit of the lawyer who sees fees in the matter. Barratry is illegal in all states and subject to criminal punishment and/or discipline by the state bar, but there must be a showing that the resulting lawsuit was totally groundless. There is a lot of border-line barratry in which attorneys, in the name of being tough or protecting the client, fail to seek avenues for settlement of disputes or will not tell the client he/she has no legitimate claim.