franchise

Tue Feb 8 21:04:24 UTC 2011

Point taken, Victor. But remember that "leatherneck" originated in a far
more isolated subculture (British naval circles) at a time when the
mainstream media (books and periodicals) had little interest in its
linguistic minutiae. Hollywood since the '20s, however, has never been shy
about communicating with the outside world, and its business jargon and
attitudes have been reported and caricatured in billlions of words since
then.

So I think if the contemporary sense of  "franchise" had had any subcultural
currency 75 years ago (except by accident in one or two brains)  the
findable exx. would be many and unmistakable.  We'd then be hypothesizing
whether the usage in question had not originated in the days of Griffith.

Actually, I'm glad I finally looked the word up. This discussion raises some
basic theoretical issues about the limits of lexicography, diachronic and
otherwise.  (Lurking whippersnappers: how many can YOU find?)

JL

On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 3:55 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dan's '79 is a good one. It does seem to mean something like "unique
> gimmick." It could be an indication that the older meanings were starting to
> get shaky for some speakers.
>
> I suggest that most (if not all) of the pre-'80s "frachises" that seem to
> exemplify the newer meaning in question are misleading because they seem (to
> me) to rely on ideas of "holding" or "having" or "maintaining" a figurative
> "franchise" in the older sense and acting upon that.  The clear-cut newer
> use seems to carry none of that semantic baggage. It essentially means
> "concept, esp. if owned by somebody."
>
> It may be much ado about very little. I'm always troubled, though, by
> historical treatments that imply a much older known currency for what has
> only recently become a widely used term.
>
> I'd go with "the ex. is uniquely early" on that basis.  Even if five more
> were to turn up between 1930 and 1986, it wouldn't change the fact that, as
> far as anyone can tell, "franchise" = 'concept' has been familiar - app.
> even in Hollywood - only from the mid '80s.
>
> Like that knowledge matters to any completely sane person, of course.
>
> JL
>   On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 3:38 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: franchise
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I am a little confused.
>>
>> Franchise is a word that refers to a legal concept, but also refers to
>> a broader "underlying concept'.
>>
>> I see the word being used for both over the years, and I would call
>> the "underlying concept" a 'de facto' franchise.
>>
>> That is what the 1936 cite is all about -- WB made a lot of G-Men
>> movies. Other studios could have made them; other studios in fact did.
>> But WB made a lot of them.
>>
>> Here is a 1951 cite:
>>
>> http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20715F83E5A137A93C3AB178AD85F458585F9&scp=15&sq=movie+franchise&st=p
>> "MAURICE EVANS, who will renew his local franchise on Shakespeare's
>> "King Richard II" when he brings the tragedy to the City Center
>> Wednesday night..."
>>
>> This is the same meaning as the 1936 WB cite. Other actors can perform
>> Richard II, but Maurice Evans did it a lot.
>>
>> I can't find the '88 cite -- is it a de facto franchise, or another
>> concept?
>>
>> Now here is a 1979 cite:
>>
>> http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10915F8345C12728DDDA00894D1405B898BF1D3
>> "It is a law of television that a dramatic-series hero must have a
>> franchise. That is, he or she must be a problem-solver of some sort --
>> police officer, private investigator, physician, lawyer, teacher,
>> coach."
>>
>> Looks different to me. Means something akin to "gimmick".
>>
>> DanG
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com>
>> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
>> > Subject:      Re: franchise
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > On Sun, Feb 06, 2011 at 08:52:07AM -0500, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>> >> 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.
>> >
>> > We did puzzle over this, and no, we don't have any intervening cites (we
>> > would have included them, had any been available). Still, I don't think
>> > bracketing is the right solution here--the 1936 quote does represent the
>> > sense in question, and the fact that this sense didn't really catch on
>> > for fifty years doesn't really matter. The quotation paragraph shows
>> > that there's a gap, and that seems good enough to me; other
>> > possibilities might be to have an explicit note saying "Quot. 1936 is
>> > uniquely early" or "Not in general use until the 1980s" or the like. I
>> > also think there's a reasonable chance that there are other quotes out
>> > there, it's just a sense that's hard to find.
>> >
>> > Jesse Sheidlower
>> > OED
>> >
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>
>
>
> --
>  "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>

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