WirdThief

One of our pet peeves is private corporations who do legal and grammatic violence to the language. One sin leads to the other. We cringed when Lutheran Social Services coined the new name “Thrivent,” just as we had a nails-on-chalkboard response to “Xcel” and “Qwest.” It would seem that current trends in corporate branding are not only to create memorable neologisms, but to try to be poetic about it, and whole industries have sprung up around welding words together in strange spork-like configurations with no respect for the laws of language. (As the trend proliferates, its results are less memorable, or are simply wrong and misleading–“Thrivent” sounds like an erectile dysfunction medication, but then again, everything sounds like that these days, maybe because there are so many of them. We’re sure the day will arrrive when we have a somewhat more sympathetic attutude, but these days we generally have the opposite problem, and no one considers it a virtue, not even us.)

Today, Chris Riemenschnieder reports that the torch has finally dropped on one of our favorite local bands, the Olympic Hopefuls. Continuing correspondence with the USOC has resulted in a not-unfriendly caution that the USOC has trademarked the word “olympic,” and even goes so far as to suggest that there are Federal laws requiring the committee to enforce the trademark. In other words, meet “the Hopefuls.” We think it’s a shame, and we want to make a stand right now against anyone who wishes to plant their personal or professional flag on any little dry spot within the borders of Webster’s. In fact, our view is that if the word is in common usage long enough to attract the attention of Noah’s minions, then it falls within International waters, and ought to be open to all who wish to travel there.

“Olympic” is a word like that. We might have suggested to Darren and friends that they try “Olympian Hopefuls,” but if the USOC was brazen enough to trademark the one, surely they trademarked the other. We’re reminded of another favorite local band’s one-punch KO at the hands of the corporate poets–remember when Tilt-A-Whirl became Arcwelder?

If the tradeoff is more companies making up stupid names that appear in no dictionary, the better to protect their legal interests, then fine. Frankly, we don’t foresee a sudden run-up in the stock of “Lucent” among poets and novelists, and we pledge never to use that word when another will do as well. Though we have taken note of how some of the world’s best-established brands become effective shortcuts in description (even at the syllabic level, i.e. “McMansions”), some nonsense words are headed for a richly deserved instant oblivion. May they rest in a deep, dark hole capped by a little ® manhole cover.