franchise

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED offers a good def. of the now-ubiquitous "franchise":  "orig. *U.S.* A
general title, format, or unifying concept used for creating or marketing a
series of products (esp. films, television shows, etc.)."

Its primary ex. is from the _N.Y. Times_ in 1936.  However, there follows a
half-century gap and in 1988 the same NYT had to define the word for its
readers.

1936 says, "Warner Brothers hold their G-Man franchise with ‘Public Enemy's
Wife’ at the Strand."

The uniquely early date, plus the tenor of "hold" (presumably "maintain")
suggests to finicky me that the writer was simply playing facetiously off
the established sense of an official authorization to trade in something,

So I'd put the ex. in brackets - unless OED has a bunch of suppressed cites
showing continuity of usage between 1936 and 1986.

I thought to look the word up because the newer meaning has never made much
logical sense to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


JL

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

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