Botox, themself and slugsCorpus Methods in Many PlacesAdam KilgarriffLexical Computing Ltd

•Corpus: a collection of texts

•How people talk about X•Indirect evidence of

▫How people think about X

Case study 1: botox•Trade mark infringement

▫Allergan Inc own the mark botox▫Competitor Klein Becker used it in

advertising▫Allergan sued▫Klein Becker counter-case

Botox is a generic word so cannot be a mark

Well-known past casesIn English-speaking world

▫hoover▫kleenex▫aspirin▫biro

Fracophonie:▫bic

Linguistic questionWhen is a word generic and when is it

name-like

•Linguistic ‘expert witness’

Lots of evidence•This corpus: 876 hits

▫UKWAC: web-crawled, 1.5 b words, 2006 Formal Informal News Blogs Jokes Advertising

Linguistic features•Prototypical for brands

▫Pre-modifier Adidas trainers

▫Limited integration into linguistic system

Capitalisation

Capitalisation•Native speakers think of is as a name

▫they capitalise•else not unless

▫beginning of sentence▫heading

•Professional writers▫Capitalise if it is a trademark

or risk being sued

Capitalisation•But what is the norm?

▫all nouns in UKWaC (freq>50)▫how often capitalised?

Adam Kilgarriff

15

English nouns: % capitalized

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

TypesTokens

Capitalisation•U-shaped distribution

▫Most types Names At or near to 100% capitalised

▫Most tokens Common nouns Under 50%

▫50-95% not many items

Word Frequency % capsTrademark words

Colgate 569 98.1Vauxhall 6753 98.2Asda 6188 97.2Budweiser 707 98.3Boeing 5995 99.4Levis 4494 98.2Sanyo 878 97.8Ikea 1358 95.7Nivea 497 92.4Odeon 2849 97.5

ContendedSabatier 37 94.6Botox 876 74.5

Generic wordsRibbon 12329 15.3Debacle 2310 2.9Itch 2128 13.9Macaque 870 16.7Peephole 242 22.3Reunion 10502 31.7Schoolboy 4238 12.6Fossil 20981 12.2Housewife 3799 48.2Ferry 48786 39.0

Case study 1: botox•Trade mark infringement

▫Allergan Inc own the mark botox▫Competitor Klein Becker used it in

advertising▫Allergan sued▫Klein Becker counter-case

Botox is a generic word so cannot be a mark

Case study 2: Bible Translation•Themself

▫BNC 26 0.2▫Ukwac: 389, 0.1/m▫08: 1191 0.4/m▫12: 11,164 0.9/m

Case study 3: Species•Which species deserve preserving

▫Rhino vs. roach

• cat + dog 0.76▫ feed,own,love,want,give,allow,adopt,keep,leave,bring,see▫ train,have,get,find,help

• horse + dog,cat 0.600▫ feed,own,love,help,give,breed,keep,leave,bring,see,train,

allow,put,get,name • donkey + pony 0.538

▫ saddle,pet,ride,groom,hitch,domesticate,tether • lion + wolf 0.526

▫ shoot,feed,hunt,resemble,breed,spot,tame,kill,encounter▫ chase

• roach + snail 0.500 ▫ repel,squash

• crocodile + alligator 0.500▫ wrestle,stuff,spot,embroider,tame

• goose + pigeon 0.471▫ feed,breed,pluck,deter,stuff,slaughter,roast,chase