optionality

A contributor noticed that one of Trump’s advisors claimed that Trump liked optionality.  She queried the acceptability of optionality.

It does have a history in English dating back to the 1800s. The first citation in 1817 is not convincing.  The second in 1880 has the air of a humorous coinage by a skilful writer:

How much optionality there may be in an option which is allowed to opt only in one direction may yet be a question for the learned.  The Scotsman 1880.

The word was used infrequently until it was taken up by linguistics in the 1970s (with reference to grammatical rules or pronunciations which may or may not be used) and then by computing (with reference to computer applications which offer a range of procedures to the user).  It is this computer use which is responsible for a rise in frequency from 1960 to 1990.  Then optionality became part of the jargon of the business world and so frequency surged. The graph has an almost straight line going up.  Every corporate leader preached the message of having optionality — that is having flexibility in being able to meet future opportunities rather than being locked into a single way of generating profit.

I think that it is this business use of optionality that Trump is supposed to advocate.