PUBLIC SERVANT

HAT PICTURE DOES the title “public servant” paint for you? Is it of a Amanda Laugesen explains that a public servant was “a convict assigned to public labour or work for the government”. When “public servant” was first coined in 1797 it was a euphemism for convict. Even in those early years, everyone hated to be called a convict, so all kinds of other expressions were coined to soften this harsh word, such as “government man”, “prisoner”, or “assigned servant”. And at the top of the list of ways to not call a convict a convict was “public servant”.