"product" as non-manufactured

[Benjamin Barrett]

Although I am only surmising, what I intended as "product" from a legal
context was when it is used in agreements (contracts) and is used in a
less-than-concrete manner. Something like a clause stating, "The
Subcontractor shall deliver the below-mentioned products..." In this sense,
it's like a deliverable.

The Sixth ed. of Black's says of product:

With reference to property...Goods produced...Something produced by physical
labor or intellectual effort or something produced naturally or as result of
natural process as by generation of growth.

Benjamin Barrett
gogaku at ix.netcom.com

------Original Message-----
-From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On
-Behalf Of James E. Clapp

-Roly Sussex asked:
->
-> Does anyone have a date, place or other source for when "product"
-> grew out of its "manufactured physical object" meaning and started
-> to be used for financial plans, share portfolio strategies,
-> mortgages, health plans and so on? It sounds like management/
-> sales-speak.

-Benjamin Barrett answered:
->
-> Although I agree it sounds like business-speak, I would think this comes
-> from law not sales. Black's includes a reference but it isn't dated.
-
-That would really surprise me.  When I was practicing law in the
-mid-eighties I encountered the term (in the sense Roly is asking about)
-only in corporate business plans and the like:  "We will grow domestic
-revenues by rolling out a new reverse debenture product and grow the
-foreign subsidiary through strategic targeting of the Cayman Islands option
-straddle product."

-The latest Black's (7th ed.) is in accord, defining "product" as follows:
-
-       Something that is distributed commercially for use
-       or consumption and that is usu. (1) tangible personal
-       property, (2) the result of fabrication or processing,
-       and (3) an item that has passed through a chain of
-       commercial distribution before ultimate use or consumption.
-
-If a previous Black's said something else, Garner must have taken it out.
-
-James E. Clapp