"to executive produce"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> now chris waigl has pointed out "to executive produce", which gets a
> huge number of web hits (in its various forms).  you can see why it's
> so popular: "X will executive produce Y" says more than "X will
> produce Y", and it has an agentive subject, unlike the paraphrase "X
> will be the executive producer of Y" (which is also longer than "X
> will executive produce Y").
>
> i have the feeling that this one has been around for a while, but it's
> hard to check out.

A few cites for "executive produced" (the one from 1948 might be a
typo for "executive producer"):

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1948 _Winnipeg Free Press_ 22 Mar. 5/6 Best documentary, Design For
Death, Sid Rogell, executive produced (R.K.O.).
---
1970 _Los Angeles Times_ 29 June IV19/1 The Alan Lerner musical was
excellently executive-produced by Howard Howard Koch ("Odd Couple").
---
1972 _St. Petersburg Times_ 11 Sep. 10D/3 The first show could be
subtitled The Mod Squad Meets West Side Story because the regulars
have counterparts on The Mod Squad (they're both executive produced by
Aaron Spelling).
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Qr0MAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7l8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6967,600321
---

--Ben Zimmer

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