3 ms·
It is quite accurate for an American company, the word "concern" used in that way is just more common in formal writing and in older writing. This is yet anothe
by Amezarak 5y ago
It is quite accurate for an American company, the word "concern" used in that way is just more common in formal writing and in older writing. This is yet another victim of the shrinking common English vocabulary inflicted in large part by the Internet, but also other social forces.
For usages like this, it's usually better to use books.google.com. There, you can find many instances of the phrase "American concern" used to mean "American company" by everyone from official US government sources to journalists to writers.
The usage dates back quite some time, if it was borrowed from the German and not a native English word descended from Old English, it was more than a hundred years ago. It certainly predates the modern German legal definition of a concern.
Here is an English example from 1840:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_North_American_Review/R2QCAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22American+concern%22+business&pg=PA141&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_North_American_Revi...
EDIT: This definition is also in Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary.