"Nigga" untrademarkable?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

There's an article in the Washington Post about comedian Damon Wayans
trying to trademark the word "Nigga" for a hiphop clothing line:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031401960.html

USPTO has in the past rejected any variant of the N-word as derogatory
and therefore unsuitable for a trademark. One scholar is quoted as
saying an exception should be made for "Nigga":

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Wayans, whose application was submitted early last year, could argue
that the word he hopes to trademark, "Nigga," is different, says Todd
Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern
California and author of the book "The New H.N.I.C.: The Death of
Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop."
"I don't think it's the same thing," Boyd says. "Hip-hop has redefined
the word. It can mean a number of things. It can be a term of
admiration. It can be a term of recognition."
-----

Wayans could always point to the OED3 etymology for "nigger":

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The resurgence of the form nigga (plural often niggaz) and other forms
without final -r in late 20th-cent. use (esp. in representations of
urban African-American speech) is prob. due to its deliberate adoption
by some speakers as a distinct word, associated with neutral or
positive senses (esp. senses 1c, 4, 5, and 7); cf. quot. 2001 at sense
7.
...
2001 Washington Monthly Apr. 51/2 In private conversations among
blacks, Clinton is ghetto, a nigga (not nigger, mind you) -- terms
that say: He is one of us.
-----


--Ben Zimmer

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