second thoughts on Nkinis

[Dennis R. Preston]

And I'm sure I can hear Ricky Jacobs grumbling he got nothing.

dInIs

>At 10:34 PM -0500 12/21/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>>>>    French monokini and bikini were both app. coined by Louis Reard and
>>>>>patented by him in 1946: see Femmes d'Aujourd'hui (1972) 12 July.]
>>
>>What does this mean? I don't think a word can be patented, can it?
>
>there have been other attempts, one famous one being when Pat Riley
>supposedly patented "three-peat" after his Lakers won two
>championships consecutively in the late 80's.  Of course then they
>didn't win, and it was only in the 90's when his nemesis Phil Jackson
>won two "three-peats" with the Chicago Bulls, courtesy of Jordan,
>Pippen, and company.  There was speculation that the companies that
>made up Three-peat tees and sweatshirts to celebrate the events would
>have to pay royalties to Riley, and whether that would partially make
>up for the fact that his teams never accomplished the feat.
>
>In our own world, more or less, Arnold or someone else may recall the
>rumor that the IBM-based syntactician Peter Rosenbaum had patented
>"Raising", so that every time someone else mentioned the rule--or, we
>liked to think after one too many tokes of banana peel, every time
>someone said something of the form "I believe John to have kissed
>Mary" or "A unicorn seems to be approaching" [yes, those were both
>considered instances of Raising back then]--Rosenbaum would demand a
>couple of cents.
>
>larry


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
        Asian and African Languages
Wells Hall A-740
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
Office: (517) 353-0740
Fax: (517) 432-2736