Pillaging the Language
I
AMERICAN speech and the English tongue have long been hospitable to the stranger that has knocked at the door; but, when no stranger knocked, their votaries have not hesitated to play the part of buccaneers, appropriating all the foreign terms that they thought would be of use to them in advancing their aims, whether cultural or otherwise; and the practice of piracy continues. So it has come about that we speak the one tongue that is nearer to polyglot than any other now spoken.
A few years after the World War, — before the flapper and her boy friend, the sheik, crashed into our civilization, and before the influx of aeronautical and radiological terms, — the New York Sun remarked editorially that the English language had arrived ‘rather early at a comparative sterility, so far as its own stock was concerned,’ and ‘proceeded to adopt the waifs and strays of other tongues.’ This adoption had been going on silently for centuries before the words quoted were penned, but they remind the writer of a gracious invitation received from the distinguished editor of the sheet then famous for its slogan, ‘If you see it in the Sun it’s so,’ to write an article on the number of words in the tongue that British and Americans speak in common. For reasons that it is unnecessary to dwell on here, the invitation could not be accepted. How very sincere the writer of the editorial referred to was in his belief in the sterility of our word-producing powers is shown by his further comment: ‘Putting aside Indian, Chinese, immigrant’s importations, and slang, we are still doomed to receive an alarming influx of new words.’
While the World War abruptly checked the work of lexicographical research, this had been progressing steadily, on both sides of the Atlantic, for years before the cataclasm occurred. Terms running into the thousands, which had been overlooked by trained readers of past time, were discovered, and the riches that certain of our sciences contributed were revealed, and these were added to the total, until it became evident to philologists that, together with the terms already recorded in the dictionaries of the day, the sum of words available for use approximated one million.
The coining of words is a perpetual performance, sometimes the result of necessity, often the fruit of ignorance, for those persons who have the fewest words at their command suffer from the temptation to create new forms, and thus necessity becomes the mother of invention. Our love for new terminology, for new uses of old words, or for the revival of words long dead, has been shown by a number of our presidents, from the days of Andrew Jackson to the present time — that is, from ‘O. K.,’ claimed to be a misreading of Jackson’s ill-formed ‘O. R.’ for ‘Ordered recorded,’ to the ‘noble experiment’ attributed to President Hoover, not forgetting Warren Harding’s ‘normalcy.’ To this love we may attribute the novel creations of the manufacturing world. The man who has goods to sell wants a word that will arrest attention, or a slogan that is easily memorized.
This spirit of publicity is still in evidence on the pages of some of our leading periodicals, one of which is known as ‘the Prince of Weeklies’; another advises us to ‘Tell it to the World,’ and another boasts of ‘All the News that’s fit to print.’ Progressive journalism pays little heed to the slogan to-day. It is out to score a ‘ beat ’ off sundry competitors, and thus win the advertiser to the pages under its control.
Commerce has enriched our vocabulary with many useful words and has embellished it with great numbers of arbitrarily formed terms, if two hundred thousand may be so characterized, and the increase continues weekly. Some of the latter class, once familiar, are so well known to-day that they are remembered without the need of advertising to create demand; others needs must continue to keep in the spotlight or they will be crowded out of sight and pass quickly out of use. We still ‘have a little fairy in our home,’ side by side with the Sapolio that won fame and fortune for Ward and Gow; but, if the present proprietors of these indispensables to every home still advertise, the range of their advertising seems to be restricted. Inasmuch as trade-mark names are lures for trade, — to create demand as well as to protect the proprietors from unscrupulous competitors, — their purpose is to attract custom and awaken desire or the wish to obtain. To the men who coin them, these names seem the best that they can coin. Sometimes the coinage shows creative genius; often it shows a total lack of it. Once in a great while mental ability of an uncommon kind produces a term that arrests public attention. Such a one is ‘mulsified’; another is ‘tabloid.’ It may safely be said that in coining these terms no attempt was made at wit or beauty, but the desire for suitability or fitness is evident. As a general rule, efforts at word coinage by synthesis result, in fantastic formations that often defeat the purposes in view. Of course there are certain notable exceptions, such as ‘escalator,’ ‘Nabisco,’ ‘radiotron,’ and ‘rayon.’ In common with ‘kodak,’ they are in excellent standing throughout the world. ‘Rayon,’ however, is not a protected trade name, but a word that has been admitted to our vocabulary on the same standing as ‘cotton’ and ‘wool.’
II
No one should cavil at the arbitrarily formed term duly registered and otherwise protected, but who shall be blamed for protesting against the registration or protection of a term that has been in common use for two, three, or perhaps for ten years or longer before such registration or protection is applied for and granted? Word piracy is not uncommon, and against such a form of buccaneering one may protest, for it threatens some of the choicest of our vocables, others having already been misappropriated.
Why should a term like ‘point lace,’ which has been used for years to designate a lace made by hand and wholly with a needle, be debased to the level of a registered trade-mark used to name certain wheat products? And why should the homestead and burial place of George Washington be desecrated, and become a registered trademark name for certain food ingredients? This may be ‘good business,’ but, if it be not downright desecration, it is certainly not free from indelicacy.
My dictionary tells me that an enchantress is ‘a bewitching woman,’ and to be told that the word designates ‘a variety of cantaloupe,’ with its native rotundity, puts one’s powers of imagination and realization under a great strain; yet the ‘enchantress’ cantaloupe is a product of a Californian fruit grower. From the same lexicon one may learn that a witch is ‘a sorceress ’ as well as ‘ the opposite of a wizard.’ The latter term, trimmed to ‘wiz,’ might have provided a fitter name for a remover of chemical carbon than all of the witches of Salem or elsewhere; yet ‘witch’ is a registered trade-mark name for a decarbonizer.
Picture the Presbyterian or Brownist ‘Puritans,’ endeared to us as Pilgrim Fathers, defined as they should be, with the decoration ‘a trade-mark name for printed shirtings and percales registered in the United States Patent Office.’
To one who loves words, there is something incongruous in taking ‘rosemary,’ etymologically ‘the dew of the sea,’ with its beautiful blue flowerets, its refreshing perfume, and its symbolic significance of ‘remembrance,’ and applying it to a grade of wheat flour. And what is there in wheat flour, of whatever grade, that it should be signalized ‘star,’ presumably as above all competitors, when we already have sufficient misapplications of the term to confuse the wise?
Some manufacturers concede the common right to the words they use. Others do not, and insist that registration gives title to the exclusive use of the term registered and that this fact, together with that of registration, must be stated in the dictionaries of the day. It is such insistence, supported by the services of unscrupulous attorneys, that heads ill-advised clients toward the courts to assert the ‘exclusive rights’ to which they have foolishly been led to believe they hold title.
The word ‘lollypop’ will serve to illustrate the way in which the indiscriminate granting, to such persons as apply for them, of registered trademark rights to words established in the language affects the rights of the public.
‘Lollypop’ is a term in general use for a particular kind of sweet, made usually of sugar or treacle, that dissolves easily in the mouth. This has been so for more than a century, and as long ago as 1790 the lollypop was a popular sweetmeat made of sugar and butter. It was flavored variously, with orange, peppermint, lemon, and the like. The word is to be found in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, published in 1790. A maker of lollypops applies for registration of the word as a trade-mark, registers it, and then protests against its being recorded in the dictionaries and retained there without due acknowledgment of his rights, and requests that it be removed. Nothing more brazen concerning a word that has been established in the language for nearly one hundred and fifty years has ever been attempted.
About the year 1920, a company of well-known New York lens manufacturers applied for and obtained tradename protection for ‘azurine’ and ‘azurlite.’ The first of these terms has been a part of the language since Hakluyt made use of it in his Voyages (III, 37) in 1600, and means blue, azure, or, according to Littré, pale blue inclining to gray. The patentees of ‘azurine’ used the term for a greenish blue, and compounded their word from ‘azure’ and ‘marine.’ ‘Azurlite’ is a gem stone from Arizona, and is formed of ‘azure’ and the suffix ‘-lite,’ which ultimately comes from the Greek lithos, stone. Although well established in our common tongue, these terms are now registered trade names.
Other idiosyncrasies of the owners of trade names are in evidence when a pharmacal company, for example, manifests its willingness to enjoy the publicity afforded by the pages of a dictionary by supplying a definition of its proprietary term, but repudiates the transaction twenty years later and requests the withdrawal of both letter and word. Such was the case with an antiseptic sold under an acknowledged trade-mark name that was removed from the pages of the dictionary a few years ago.
Among other owners whose agents or representatives originally sought dictionary publicity, and willingly supplied definitive statements and illustrative material to supplement them, were the proprietors of alundum, carborundum, the caterpillar-tractor, celotex, dictophone, neutrodyne, pantasote, and so forth. Later the proprietorate suffered change of heart, or was impelled to protest by counsel unfamiliar with the facts, with the result that removal from the works of reference was sought.
Karel Čapek’s Robot is drawn from the Polish word robota, ‘work.’ In the speech of the Poles, a robot is a workman. Čapek’s creation is original in that it has introduced a new term to designate a person who works mechanically — without interest in his job. R. U. R. stands for ’Rossum’s Universal Robots.’ The word was copyrighted by Karel Čapek as the name for an automaton invented to provide cheap labor and take care of all hard toil, and it behooves everyone who makes use of this or like terms to bear in mind that they are protected by the copyright law. Few editors care to include such words in dictionaries until they have burst the bonds of the law by repeated usage, and have become accepted as part of our daily speech.
Sometimes an applicant for proprietary rights combines two words that have been in common use in the language for generations, forms a solid compound, and then applies to the United States Patent Office for registration and protection. If such protection is granted, the people may be deprived of the use of the normal terminology of the language. Several examples of this practice have already been cited above.
III
Under the trade-mark laws of the United States, a trade-mark cannot be registered if it consists of or contains matter that is not susceptible of exclusive appropriation; as, for instance, personal names and geographical or place names, which are excluded as being held to be common words currently used, and therefore inapplicable for use in designating articles for which trade-marks are desired. Notwithstanding this, ‘tabasco sauce,’ cut to ‘tabasco’ by the public, is a trade name, and since 1905 its manufacturers have been granted proprietary trade-name protection. Now, ‘tabasco sauce’ does not describe the article in question, which is properly a pepper sauce that masquerades under the descriptive appellation Tabasco, the name of a state in Mexico since the federation of that country in 1824.
Among would-be trade names we have ‘celluloid,’ a word that was in use more than a year before it was introduced into the patent granted in Great Britain to protect the manufacture of soluble cotton or pyroxyline into a solid. The process for producing the substance was invented in the United States, and first patented in April 1871, as a material used for dental plates. The specifications of the first British patent, No. 1025 (1871), do not contain the word ‘celluloid,’ but the specifications of Hyatt’s patent, No. 3101, issued in 1872, contain the following: ‘The manufacture of pyroxyline or soluble cotton into a solid (which is herein denominated celluloid).' But ‘celluloid’ had obtained currency in the dental profession before that date, for in the British Journal of Dental Science for 1871, Volume XIV, we find, ‘The material is named the celluloid base, so called from the material from which it is composed.’ This shows the term to have been common property by usage for more than a year prior to protection or registration.
As I have said, some manufacturers, seeking the registration of words drawn from the language, concede the common right to such as they use, and waive all but title in a specific form or design. Among the manufacturers who have done this is the American Lock Manufacturing Company, of Chicago, which, in applying for registration of ‘grip tumbler’ as a trade name for its types of locks, made no exclusive claims for the words ‘grip’ and ‘tumbler’ ‘except as a part of the mark shown by their drawing.’
Words like ‘aerogram,’ ‘marconigram,’ and ‘radiogram’ are proprietary and in restricted use, but the genius of the language seems to prefer ‘radio,’ which, regardless of the fact that it is an adjective, is now commonly used as a noun. And ‘ radio ’ has given us a rich harvest of trade names. Exactly which to select from this store for inclusion in the dictionary is one of the uneasy problems the man at the helm has to solve. The great corporations that support this new science — the public, the broadcasting stations — may seek for terms not yet recorded. Why? Because no term should be included that is not likely to be inquired for by a large body of persons. The problem itself is not solved by mere inclusion.
Formed from the Latin radius, ‘ray,’ the word ‘radio’ itself is having a varied experience. It has already given us ‘radiogram’ and ‘radiolog’ as compounds of recent formation. Itself it is used generally to designate (1) the science of transmitting matter by wireless telegraphy; (2) the apparatus and paraphernalia required to erect either a transmitting or a receiving point or station; and (3) that which is transmitted or broadcast by these means. But in Philadelphia ‘radio’ is the trade-mark name for a bay rum!
The adoption of ‘T. N. T.’ as a trade name for a footbath-wash provokes a smile, for ‘trinitrotoluene’ has held undisputed possession of this symbol for many years. Why permission should be granted to anyone to use ‘seaplane’ as a name for a self-raising wheat flour is perhaps not so much of a puzzle as ‘sun set,’ which has been assigned to a similar product. A self-raising wheat flour might not inappropriately be named, by the telescope process, ‘sereator.’
Some years ago the word ‘opticist,’ which dates from 1884, found its way into the dictionary as a legitimate word. The optician, unaware of the fact that the term had been given copyright protection, but seeing it in the dictionary, would naturally think it to be a general term, to the use of which he was as much entitled as the rest of mankind. But there have been cases in which opticians who set up the sign ‘Opticist’ over their stores were sued by the man who had been so astute as to protect the word.
‘ A 1 ’ is commonly known as a term designating ‘of the first or highest class: used of shipping to denote the condition of a vessel as to hull and equipment. By extension, of the highest class of other things and in any respect; as, an A 1 musician; an A number one cook: read A one or A number one.’ But the term is claimed as a trademark for electrical apparatus, machines, and supplies for welding, manufactured by an English corporation established in Bradford without ‘claim to the exclusive use of the letters A 1, or of the letter A and the numeral 1.’
Though star-spangled our ‘banner,’ that fact has not prevented the appropriation of this word as a registered trade-mark name for one of our food products that consists of rolled oats. Some years ago William Beverly Winslow, a noted New York attorney, was interested in a case in which the proprietors of a breakfast food maintained that they had coined the word ‘shredded.’ The term was traced through American sources back to 1864; a further search, made in England, revealed that the word was in use as long ago as 1577. It was found in Hammer’s Ancient Ecclesiastical History, which said, ‘Others gnawing the small, shredded tops of green grass used them for food.’ ‘Shredded herbs’ and ‘shredded forage’ were in existence in 1656 and 1662, and in the latter year, according to Olearius’s Voyages, the ordinary forage for horses was ‘rice mixed with shredded straw.’
Except for its hybrid form, the term ‘ hydrofoam ’ — a bit of Greek combined with a bit of Anglo-Saxon — might pass muster as an English word, for we have many others of like formation in the language, but it is a trade name for a shampoo manufactured in St. Paul.
‘Tabloid,’ to which reference has already been made, is one term that has caused its coiners and proprietors — Burroughs, Wellcome and Company of London — much trouble. It is a copyright trade-mark designating the concentrated products made by the company. Naturally the proprietors are jealous of this word, and have endeavored by legal process to restrict its use to their products, but they are merely emulating Mrs. Partington in her famous contest with the Atlantic Ocean. The term has won favor with the press and the public at large, and none but perpetual effort, if that be possible, can restrict its use. The Eskimos of Alaska might as well try to prevent the use of the word ‘ hooch ’ in bootleg lore because it is a corruption of hoochinoo, the fermented drink they manufacture from yeast, flour, molasses, and sugar, which is one of the earliest of home-brews.
A large percentage of the so-called trade terms are telescope words — also sometimes called portmanteau words — or mere misspellings. That it is possible to name products or manufactures without resorting to the vocabulary we share in common with the rest of the English-speaking world has already been proved, so there is no need to grant registered trade-mark protection to such words as ‘inspiration,’ used to designate cotton or woolen piece goods; ‘sparkle,’ for neckties; ‘tiller,’ which smacks of the sea, for canned goods (except that one variety consists of fish); ‘zenith’ for vehicle timepieces, alarm clocks, and watches, and hundreds of other common words that have been used by persons too indolent to employ the mental faculty with which they have been endowed. Our Patent Office can easily awaken the public conscience to this abuse by refusing registration.
While a ‘pig’n a blanket’ may be as good as an angel on horseback, for aught the writer knows to the contrary, it may strike the epicure as a somewhat woolly name for a meat pie or a meat dumpling, or for some other article of food having a meat ‘filler’ and a casing or cover made from flour or other cereal. The delicacy may be appetizing enough, but its name affords no evidence of it.
In these days of ‘this freedom,’ no one will protest against ‘Polly Prim’ as applied to certain types and qualities of ladies’ and children’s aprons, or against ‘weldene,’ as used in metal working for a type of solder; but why anyone should be privileged to pillage the printers’ craft and deprive it of its characteristic ‘quad,’ in favor of a special type of shingle strip, only the Patent Office can tell, and this especially in view of the fact that the owners do not waive rights to exclusive use.
Against the use of a family name as a trade-mark name by persons who bear it, no legitimate objection can be made, even if such use should prove detrimental to the ambitions of other members of the family that bear it. Particularly is this so in a republic where the bearers of such names as Carnegie, Edison, Ford, Hoe, Singer, and the like, have contributed largely to public welfare.
IV
The work of making dictionaries frequently brings one face to face with problems that make things very interesting. One of these is the problem of inclusion and exclusion of trade names. Around these, political interests may revolve, as they may around the geographical names of foreign countries. So far as the trade names are concerned, there was a time when the owners of these urged dictionary makers to include them in the pages of their books.
The experience is somewhat as follows. The proprietors advertise their goods widely; writers take the terms and introduce them in their stories or in general literature, and for ten or fifteen years all goes well. Then the owning company reorganizes, appoints new officers, engages new attorneys, and soon after this the dictionary maker receives letters requesting the removal of the terms from the pages of the dictionary, as inclusion infringes the owners’ rights, and protesting against such inclusion in peremptory terms. Naturally, to one who knows the circumstances, these proceedings appear as a joke, but there is another side to them. Patented articles or products are protected for a certain period of years; but if, before the expiration of that period, the rights are sold to another company, and that company does the work that the first company may or may not have neglected to do, — goes to the Patent Office and registers its trade-mark, — the new company acquires a fresh lease of life for the name of the property that should, on the expiration of patent rights, belong to the public.
Now let us suppose that all rights in the original company lapse within four, five, or six years, and the registration of the trade-mark is only of recent entry or renewal. The name, which under the lapse of the patent would become public property (for the time in which the original inventor or creator is permitted by law to enjoy exclusively the benefits of his idea has expired), gets an extension of life that in these days of oversight — intentional or otherwise — might be continued in perpetuity for all that may be done to prevent it. This concerns the rights of the people as against the ‘rights’ of the owner — and the Federal Trade Commission.
Men who make dictionaries do not like to omit terminology about which the public is likely to inquire, nor do they care to be threatened with vexatious lawsuits when their good faith is shown by the care that they exercise in the work they do.