Bad Poetry: New Freedom

In the 1970s, 1980s, thereabouts, there was a rush of customer hostility about corporations trying to register idealistic words as brands. I don't know (do you really want me to look it up?) whether there were actual lawsuits to reclaim words like "comfort," "serenity," "security," "fidelity," "liberty," "reliable," even "snuggles," or whether it was popular demand that dictated: You can brand a product as Comfort Inn, or Serenity Sound Tracks, or whatever, if you really want to, but you can't own an individual word that's already part of the language.

My contribution to the popular demand was this bit of doggerel, which I used to recite before singing the classic American spiritual song, "Oh, Freedom." I thought the effect was stunningly ironic. Some thought it was tacky...whatever. Maybe tackiness was the point.

"

Oh, “freedom” used to sing of a wild thing,

The last day of school or the first snowfall,

Hawks in the sky, or a child on a swing,

Trees on a ridgeline, gardens without wall,

Running and running till one came to a road,

Walking for miles without any load—

Oh, freedom was a thing for which country folk were glad;

“New Freedom” in the city is a sanitary pad.

"

The company silenced protests like this below by rebranding their product. Several rebrandings that took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s showed that companies were learning from the backlash; a "Comfort" brand yarn reappeared as "Cotton-Ease," and so on. In the 1990s people earned money by researching language dictionaries to come up with names like Allante and Solara, which sound like various pleasant things in many languages, but aren't actual words in any language.

There are companies that don't learn. Levy Family Partners, reportedly, doesn't learn.

Hmm. Levy is a common name, but why am I suddenly thinking of Levy Shorts?



For those who don't remember, it's worth reading the book--just one laugh-out-loud scene after another--but, since you'll do a lot of laughing before you come to Levy Shorts: A minor subplot involves a Mr. Levy, who embodies the concept of "depressed because dumb," whose wife thinks he ought to revive a doomed sweatshop called Levy Pants (because it's "your father's sweat and blood handed to you on a silver platter"), and he eventually realizes he first turned against Levy Pants when schoolmates giggled, "He does?" So he thinks he might make something out of...Levy Shorts!

(Foreign readers can probably look this up: "Pants," noun = trousers (U.S.) or underwear (U.K.). "Pants," verb = gasps for breath with mouth open and tongue visible. "Shorts," noun = short trousers or underwear (U.S. or U.K.). "Shorts," verb = falls short, delivers less than was specified by the contractual agreement.)

I always thought Toole was making that up. Now I'm not so sure...

https://www.change.org/p/levy-family-partners-aloha-poke-co-remove-aloha-and-poke-from-your-name/

Under the guideline discussed above, they'd be safe with "Aloha Poke" as a company name. Poke, here pronounced "poh-keh" and not to be confused with the English word "poke," means "slice, cut up crosswise," or more specifically a sliced fish dish the restaurant serves. Aloha is the fundamental Hawaiian word everybody learns first; at the link above a Hawaiian explains how it's possible that aloha can be translated as "hello," "goodbye," "love and peace," "good will toward humankind," "enjoy your visit to Hawaii," and other things. Though probably not directly related, it translates shalom or ohayo better than it does any single English word. Using words like that to modify the name of a product, as a brand name, is grandiose and tacky but allowable. Further modifiers could be used to distinguish, say, Aloha Poke Restaurants from Aloha Poke Diners, or whatever else people might want to register as business names.

But...people who aren't even Hawaiians are now telling Hawaiians that they can't use their word? Yes. While Levy Family Partnership (partner?) Mark Friedlander told the Washington Post he was only asking Hawaiian restaurant owners not to trademark the combination of "Aloha Poke," which sounds reasonable, his actual letters asked Hawaiians to stop using "Aloha" at all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/07/30/a-midwestern-chain-told-hawaiians-to-stop-using-aloha-with-poke-igniting-a-heated-debate/

Which of these sounds more analogous to you:

(a) telling the British they can't use the word "crown"

(b) telling the French they can't use the word "amour"

(c) telling the Americans we can't use the word "dollar"

(d) telling the world "We are too stupid to have a business"?

As a word-nerd I find it interesting that the words that come to mind come from different registers and have meanings that almost don't overlap. The Spanish or Tex-Mex word that seems applicable is loco, which basically translates as "demented, especially by the effect of a poisonous plant found in the southwestern quarter of the continent." The Southeastern States word is "tacky," which also covers many things but etymologically means "inadequate, unpresentable, inferior, like wet paint." The Levy Family Partnership's letters to Hawaiians fit into both categories.