One of the nicest thing about words, aside from how great they look on shirts or hats, is that they are free. You could yammer like a pedantic moron for sixteen straight hours and it would not cost you a cent, except, perhaps, for bail or maybe a nice lozenge.
Or so I thought. I used to believe words were free, truly free, not just free when it's convienient, like butterflies, but really free. Use as many as you want, and there'll always be more. But now there is a grim spectre on the horizon, threatening to take our freedom of verbage away. This spectre has the face of the president.
By `president' I do not mean the Commander-in-Chief of the lovely 61 states of America, but rather the unnamed president of the "President's Choice" line of snack foods. They could be the same person, but since the President's Choice president's prime responsibility seems to be picking out the tastiest of snack foods, I hope not. I don't think any special tests are administered to determine a US President's worth as a gourmet, but if Martin Van Buren's love for fried baloney is any indicator, then I would say not.
Regardless of the true position of this dubious "president," the company that bears his or her title is responsible for flagrant abuses of our nations copyright laws, abuses which are stealing words right out of our mouths and replacing them with soft-batch cookies.
President's Choice commits this act of thievery through the names of its products. Instead of naming their cookies, snacks and cereals a nice made-up name, such as Oreo or Trix or even Nilla Wafer, names which are easily copyrightable, President's Choice appropriates fine, upstanding, hardworking English words and phrases such as "The best", "7 Reasons", and "Eat the middle first" and enslaves them to work for their products, shackled by the chains of the copyright laws.
Aside from the fact that names like "Eat the middle first" are far more cumbersome and less fun to say than "Oreo", the real tragedy is that the name "eat the middle first" has no business being copyrighted, for it is still a useful English phrase in innumerable other contexts, such as suggesting that someone begin thier consumption of Neopolitan ice cream with vanilla, or pointing out that it is the thorax that should initially consumed on a gingerbread man.
But more important than specific uses for the phrase is the license that having one copyrighted phrase like that gives to a company. Once you copyright one common set of English words, the whole dictionary becomes toothsome prey. President's Choice proved their wordlust by copyrighting the words "The Best." Surely even those who find my words to be the sad rantings of a mercury-tainted madman can surely think of some way the phrase "The Best" can be used when not referring to President's Choice Dutch Butter Cookies. Under no circumstances should any company be permitted to own the rights to a phrase like "The Best"! What are we supposed to do? Respect this copyright? If I tell my sweet grandmother that I thought her Cornish Game Lobsters and Chili was the best I have had, will I have to toss a nickel in some enevelope and mail it over to the President's Choice company as a royalty? No way. Grandma should pay half, at least.
President's Choice also has a copyright on the phrase "Something can be done." Something can be done. Some act or event or object is able to be realized or completed. How the hell were they able to copyright that phrase? A copyright is, by its very nature, a word or group of words which is intensely specific to a given product. The phrase "something can be done" is specific to nothing. It would take a team of combat-trained lawyers capable of convincing the Montagues to have the Capulets over for drinks to even get a judge to consider that the phrase "something can be done" refers only to one specific product. And yet, somehow, President's Choice owns the rights to this phrase.
I don't wish to be an alarmist, unless it'll help me get dates, but I believe that we should be prepared to do something to stop this hostile takeover of the English language. If President's Choice, Inc. wants to name their food, let them make their own word like everyone else does. If not, we may all end up living in a Repo-Man-like world populated with cans of Food(TM) and Drink(TM), and constantly(TM) having(TM) to(TM) read(TM) sentences(TM) like(TM) this(TM).Solidarity(TM).