As a lawyer that deals with trademarks, branding and advertising on a regular basis, I cannot pass up a chance (even when it’s a week late) to comment on Danny’s harangue at hotels over at China Tech News. Seems that he gets upset when they put “the” in front of their names. I think most of his frustration lies in some sort of English-major language fixation, with which I empathize.

My company has a couple of Chinese-language print magazines and four websites devoted to the China travel sector. We deal with a few dozen hotel hotel clients each week. Quite a lot. I’ve seen a rising trend to place “The” as a prefix to many of these international hotel names, as if giving the name more gravitas.

I’ve spent my time over the years being an English writing teacher, the Editor-in-Chief of a tech magazine, and the writer of a textbook - perhaps it goes without saying that the past seven years of editing Chinglish legal briefs has also made an impact.

It’s hard to break the habit of being “editor guy”, although it really does piss some people off when you complain about extra line spaces, fussy little capitalization rules, etc. But a rule is a rule, isn’t it, and having to use a “the The Hotel” construction is just bad, right?

Look, if a retail chain wants to use “Le” or “Olde” or something else inane as part of their name, I say go for it if it will get you business. It is amusing at times, but if the focus groups show that this stuff works, then it’s gonna happen. If it adds gravitas, distinctiveness, or whatever, then it’s very pretentious, but maybe the name usage is a good business decision.

From a trademark perspective, this sort of thing is kind of irrelevant. You can’t protect “the”, although the use of something like “Olde”, definitely “Ye Olde”, could be considered a bit distinctive as one element of a service mark.

The point where I do get cranky, however, is when the corporate communications and PR types insist on hard and fast rules of usage, even relating to the use of something like “the”. Very annoying when someone corrects you in the middle of a sentence like you’re a three-year-old.

So what to do? Quite simple: if your client wants you to put in the “the”, you’re going to do it, aren’t you? You may get upset, grind your teeth, clench your fists, and go home that night and kick the dog, but you’ll do it anyway because your customer tells you to do it.

Thank God we have blogs to vent our frustrations, eh?

Powered by ScribeFire.