Frazz by Jef Mallett for October 02, 2013

Ah Jef.. Don’t you know that it’s the dumbing down of America?

What’s wrong with Jef? My name is spelled weird and mispronounced constantly, at least Jef is easy!

weirdly!

Mister Mxyzptlk concurs.

Do you discuss things with your characters often, Mr. Mallett?

Frazz’s T-shirt adds a nice touch. Asics?

asics = anima sana in corpore sano

@cenright…nice catch.

But if you spell words correctly, you may not be allowed to trademark them.

ASIX – Taiwanese electronics company (from Google).

Sign on a little shop in Bryson, NC: “Necklesses”

So… if Jef Mallet is emulating Bil Keane (in dropping the letter from his name), there must be a cartoonist out there emulating Tedd Pierce and adding a letter. Else the cosmic balance will be disturbed…

Ooooooh Self-burnnnnn….

Actually, you can’t Trademark a legitimately spelled word. GM once tried it with their line of “Flexible” busses. They had to take the “e” out before they could trademark the name – which is why we are now inflicted with SAV-MORS, RITE-AIDS, BI-MARTS and the the like.

a-6!

My pet peeve, too!!

Jef only spells his name that way because his parents named him “Geouphh,” and having people belch his name got really old.

They spell wrong for distinction. It’s a lot more recognizable when you have the name “Kwik Shop” than when you have the name “Quick Shop.”

How about this spelling, Dwain. Have only met two guys that spell it the same as myself.

Good grief, people! Businesses deliberately alter spellings of common words because common words cannot be copyrighted. In the process they distort the language, but why should they care about that? When their customers become illiterate, they won’t be able to read the warning labels or the expiration dates, will they?

I may be mistaken, but I don’t think you can trade mark proper words, but you can the misspellings.

Perhaps businesses use irregular spellings to establish a name that can be trademarked. “Shop Right” is probably not a name that can be trademarked. “Shop Rite” probably is.

And yes, I think “Jef” is something of an affectation. But a tolerable one.

I don’t mean to pile on about ShopRite – I thought of this independently, before reading the other comments, but…In addition to mwbarr’s good point about trademarking, technically, if you think of ShopRite as referring to the shopping ritual (The Shop Rite [wink;smile]), it could be considered spelled correctly (if one accepts turning the two words into a compound word).

Oh come on now! Why not insist that Jef be Goeff? Or whatever the name was before that? In this country it’s legal to use any name you want – without having to change it through the legal system – as long as you don’t do it for fraudulent purposes.

We have Sav-A-Lot & Kwik Trip, & a brand called Shur-Fine.

What’s even worse than store names is smartphone app names. Let’s see… there’s Pixlr, Gyft, Plaaan, Fotor, Lettrs, Bouncr, Lyst…. well, you get the idea.

And think of the spelling changes that computers (chat) and cell phones (text messaging) are causing. Nothing lasts forever.

bigpuma: I thought it was “steal” in the more honest late 19th century. Noted for having the Army shoot anyone wanting to be paid (see Homestead).

There’s a garage near here with a sign “Your on camera.” I, and the rest of my family, refuse to take our cars there. figure if they can’t spell they can’t read the service manuals either.

i have a brother named Stev (as well as a brother named Geoff)

I think it’s alright to make fun of Yourself!

Anybody here read “Questionable Content” written by a guy named Jeph?