A yawning pit opened in the world of editing when I read an advertising feature in a recent trade magazine. It concerns the use of trademarks in news copy.
I’d xerox the article for you, but that would be wrong. I could fed ex it to you, but that would also be wrong. At least, it would be wrong to refer to Xerox photocopiers and Federal Express delivery services in that manner. This I now know.
Another example: If I were to mosey out to the field to round up some weeds, I could write about it. But if I were going to that same field to Roundup some weeds, I could be accused of trademark infringement.
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Only for the sake of you, the valued reader, would I risk the legal pitfalls of describing the above. If approached by lawyers for the aforementioned firms, I’ll claim editorial licence employed for the sake of reader edification.
If they call you, please back me up on that.
It’s like this: certain brand names have become so familiar that their trademarks have become extinct. Dry ice, yellow pages, linoleum, nylon, tabloid and yo-yo are examples. The brand name became synonymous with the object.
This unfortunate happenstance is blamed, says the article, on publishers and editors who used these words to such an extent that exclusivity faded away.
But now businesses are wise to the nefarious ways of publishing. They spend a lot of time and money on trademarks, so they don’t want the names to enter the polyglot of adjectives that have been nouned or verbed or adverbized by scribes seeking any old readily understandable word.
There’s a long list of trademarks considered to be endangered. Some of them are surprising in the fact that they’re considered endangered rather than already extinct.
Allen wrenches. Band-Aid adhesive bandages. Dumpster trash containers. Kleenex tissues. Laserjet printers. Loafer shoes. Popsicle flavoured ices. Niblets canned corn. Windbreaker clothing. Zamboni ice resurfacing machines.
One look at that list and you begin to see the dangers that lurk for na•ve editors who sally into a world weighted with trademarks.
They can’t clean up copy with clorox or hefty trash bags without encountering a trademark. They can’t loaf through layout in levis or lycra or gore-tex or polar fleece. Woe to those who use a porta potti, post-it note or scotch tape without proper thought, because trademarks apply to all.
And if editors should get headaches from trademark trials, they can’t report on taking advil, geritol, gatorade or even jello packed in a thermos.
Only generic aspirin, with a trademark deemed extinct, may be safe.
