Republican ticket

Posted by Victoria S Dennis on November 07, 2008 at 15:49

In Reply to: Republican ticket posted by Debe on November 07, 2008 at 12:20:

: Where did the term political ticket come from? - example, the Republican "ticket".

It's very old in American English, long pre-dating Independence. The Oxford English Dictionary records the first known usage in the sense "list of candidates for election nominated or put forward by a party or faction" in 1711.

The word "ticket" comes from the French "etiquette" which in its turn comes from the verb "estiquier" meaning "fix, stick". Originally a "ticket" was a short written notice intended to be stuck up in a public place. (In French "etiquette" still means a stuck-on label, e,g, on a bottle or jar.)