Usage of 'Nexis' is Baffling

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 8, 2007, at 9:17 AM, Fred Shapiro wrote:

> I believe that when Toyota named its luxury car Lexus, LexisNexis took
> legal action to prevent them from using that name.  Linguists
> testified
> for Toyota that the pronunciation of "Lexus" differed from that of
> "Lexis."

and so it does, for people who similarly distinguish "Rosa's" and
"Rose's".  Lexis/Nexis could easily have found linguists who would
have pointed out that there are also people who don't make this
distinction.

i don't know the details of the case, but the most significant issue
should have been the possibility of brand name confusion (very
slight, in this case).  if another car maker decided to market a car
called Lexis, or if another database firm decided to market a search
engine called Lexus, *then* we'd clearly have a case.

arnold

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org