[Ads-l] antedating "focus group"

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED : 1936  (in ref. to Winston Churchill).
MW: 1965

1935 _Auburn [Nebr.] Journal_ (July 4) 1: The activities...are varied and
interesting - Gospel Teams[,]  Focus Groups, Visitations, and Social hours.

The nuance here (as in 1936) appears to be a small group that meets to
focus on and discuss a given issue.  Hence the narrow, now predominant
sense, which becomes common in the mid '60s.

The 1935 and 1936 exx. appear to be real outliers.

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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