Word ownership (see: "survivor")

[427TJ]

Heard this on the news this morning.

Residents of Potsdam, N.Y., have held a bake-off for the past 10 years to raise money for a local food pantry. This year, food manufacturing giant General Mills contacted organizers and told them it owns the word, and only the company can use it.

Event organizer Rose Revesi was not impressed. "That, I think, is a little silly, to think that you can own a word," Revesi said. "I mean I realize that they say that they do. But to own a word like 'bake-off.'"

"If you invented the word, maybe, but I don't know. Especially when most bake-offs are fundrasiers for good causes."

Still, organizers renamed Sunday's event a "baking contest." Organizers are still looking for a snappier name; they put a Pillsbury Doughboy cookie jar out at the event, as a suggestion box. One submission: "bake-on."