Trademark this

Oops. Wrong article of speech.

It's not "trademark THIS." It's "trademark THE."

Or so certain people in Columbus, Ohio, who fancy scarlet-and-gray would like to do, which seems silly, admittedly, until you stop to think about all the silly things people try to trademark. Few can top this, though: Ohio State University, which likes to call itself The Ohio State University, wants to trademark the "the."

Yes, that's right, America. Ohio State wants to own (trademark) merchandising rights to one of (trademark) most common words in (trademark) English language so it can put it on a bunch of hats and T-shirts and (trademark) rest of us can't.

This is, of course (trademark) height of absurdity. As these past few sentences demonstrate.

The Blob, being of a naturally suspicious nature anyway, suspects the origin of this traces back to the year the Dayton Flyers upset OSU in the NCAA Tournament. The Dayton Daily News celebrated this achievement with an immortal headline.

All it said was "The University of Dayton."

I'm guessing OSU's collective hindparts are still chapped about that. One of the classic trolls of all time.

Until now, of course.

No sooner had the news gotten out about this trademark silliness, see, than OSU was getting trolled from every point on the compass. Its grand plan, it seems, only made it a laughingstock -- a circumstance that no doubt especially stings given the innate nose-in-the-air snootiness it takes to label yourself The Ohio State University to begin with.

Now it doesn't take any effort at all to imagine the abuse that surely is forthcoming. The Blob envisions an immediate sprouting of "The Real The" T-shirts at The U, aka the University of Miami. And the first time the Buckeyes go back to Ann Arbor for the annual grudge match with Michigan?

Picture the entire Michigan student section wearing blue or yellow T-shirts (sorry, UM, maize is a vegetable, not a color) with one word on them: "The."

Heck. Some enterprising business major is probably already churning them out.

Oh, (trademark) possibilities ...