Just in case you were wondering how obscenely valuable mere words are, a story in today's Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on the trials of the rock band the Olympic Hopefuls, who've evidently been garnering some attention from the kids lately. According to the article, it seems that the US Olympic Committee fears that a moron in a hurry might confuse the band's gigs for real sporting events and has thrown a little litigious weight around to get the name changed.
We can only assume that the JC Whitney Company paid a hefty licensing fee to use the O word on its Extreme Brush Guards for Winch Bumpers, and that the big O committee's coffers were filled with money by the folks at the Hampton Fitness Bulldog Collar company. These are just two of the commerical uses of the word that appear on the first page if you Google "Olympic". Does it bother anyone else that artists and musicians are the ones fom whom engagement in vocabulary is barred by law, while corporatations enjoy full lexical priviledges?
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2 comments:
let me get this right; you got your hackles elevated because the greenback rules in favor of those who have lots of it to push in the appropriate direction?
Do you think "Lympic Hopefuls" would be too little a move over to avoid collision with the inflated muscles of the powerful?
Not a bad hackle detector. The "Lympic" solution is not a bad idea. But it's one that the band didn't feel was at their disposal (or it wasn't withing their imagination). And doesn't one just have to wonder why, doesn't one?
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