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The ownership of words is a vague and unknown concept. It’s hard to tell when an individual is less entitled to a phrase than someone else because language cannot be captured and prized away from the rest of the world, as a house or a pet can be. Freedom of speech, being the first amendment for the United States of America, is a privilege for good reason; so that the expression of thought can be produced with ease and without any resulting consequence. For this reason, a phrase is allowed to be repeated for its own purposes, not harmfully affect others, and despite it having been coined by someone else in the past, one should not be penalized for using it.
A debate is relayed between two gentlemen solely for the ownership of simply words in what is known as “Coca-Cola Letters.” Ira C. Herbert voices his ownership of the slogan “it’s the real thing” and encourages Richard Seaver to respect this claim. Herbert is the president of Coca-Cola USA, and therefore feels more heavily entitled to the phrase than Seaver, the executive vice president of Grove Press for the New York Times. He included the phrase in an advertisement for the book, “Diary of a Harlem School-teacher,” written by Tim Haskins. Herbert is concerned that with both companies using the slogan, it will “diminish its effectiveness and value as an advertising and merchandising tool” (16). He writes passionately in his plea for Seaver to discontinue the use of the phrase and takes a dignified stand-point in his argument, stating that the slogan “was first used in advertising over twenty-seven years ago” (16).
Richard Seaver takes to Herbert’s letter quite mockingly, and treats his request as a petty complaint. He conveys this attitude through a sarcastic tone and belittles Herbert when he states “[We] . . . can fully understand that the public might be confused by our use of the expression, and mistake a book by a Harlem school-teacher for a six-pack of Coca-Cola” (16). Seaver...