Bill Poser reports to stunned Language Log readers (where does he find this stuff?) that some people think they can claim family ownership of words. So Peri Fleisher thinks she deserves some cheap Google™ stock options on the grounds that when she was four years old her great-uncle introduced the word googol as a number name on a suggestion by his 9-year-old nephew Milton Sirotta? Sounds like a solid case to me! Kudos to Peri. Greedy bitch? Sure. But who said that's illegal all of a sudden? What're you, a communist? Poser's just mad because he didn't think of it. I'm not so appalled. In fact I want in. I have therefore instructed my lawyers (Messrs Dewey, Cheatham and Howe of Boston and San José) to place it on record by means of a public business announcement that I and my heirs claim ownership of, and all rights in, the following words and all words that sound like them: the verb snuggle and all derivatives thereof (e.g. snugglebunny); the adjective parsimonious; the preposition of; and the nouns ether, parsley, helicopter, oligarchy, and rhodium. So hands off.
Posted by Geoffrey K. Pullum at May 18, 2004 03:43 PM