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Botox , themself and slugs Corpus Methods in Many Places

Botox , themself and slugs Corpus Methods in Many Places. Adam Kilgarriff Lexical Computing Ltd. Corpus: a collection of texts How people talk about X Indirect evidence of How people think about X. Case study 1: botox. Trade mark infringement Allergan Inc own the mark botox

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Botox , themself and slugs Corpus Methods in Many Places

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  1. Botox, themself and slugsCorpus Methods in Many Places Adam Kilgarriff Lexical Computing Ltd

  2. Corpus: a collection of texts • How people talk about X • Indirect evidence of • How people think about X

  3. Case study 1: botox • Trade mark infringement • Allergan Inc own the mark botox • Competitor Klein Becker used it in advertising • Allergan sued • Klein Becker counter-case • Botox is a generic word so cannot be a mark

  4. Well-known past cases In English-speaking world • hoover • kleenex • aspirin • biro Fracophonie: • bic

  5. Linguistic question When is a word generic and when is it name-like • Linguistic ‘expert witness’

  6. Lots of evidence • This corpus: 876 hits • UKWAC: web-crawled, 1.5 b words, 2006 • Formal • Informal • News • Blogs • Jokes • Advertising

  7. Linguistic features • Prototypical for brands • Pre-modifier • Adidas trainers • Limited integration into linguistic system

  8. Capitalisation

  9. Capitalisation • Native speakers think of is as a name • they capitalise • else not unless • beginning of sentence • heading • Professional writers • Capitalise if it is a trademark • or risk being sued

  10. Capitalisation • But what is the norm? • all nouns in UKWaC (freq>50) • how often capitalised?

  11. English nouns: % capitalized Adam Kilgarriff

  12. Capitalisation • U-shaped distribution • Most types • Names • At or near to 100% capitalised • Most tokens • Common nouns • Under 50% • 50-95% not many items

  13. Case study 1: botox • Trade mark infringement • Allergan Inc own the mark botox • Competitor Klein Becker used it in advertising • Allergan sued • Klein Becker counter-case • Botox is a generic word so cannot be a mark

  14. Case study 2: Bible Translation • Themself • BNC 26 0.2 • Ukwac: 389, 0.1/m • 08: 1191 0.4/m • 12: 11,164 0.9/m

  15. Case study 3: Species • Which species deserve preserving • Rhino vs. roach

  16. cat + dog 0.76 • feed,own,love,want,give,allow,adopt,keep,leave,bring,see • train,have,get,find,help • horse + dog,cat0.600 • feed,own,love,help,give,breed,keep,leave,bring,see,train, allow,put,get,name • donkey + pony 0.538 • saddle,pet,ride,groom,hitch,domesticate,tether • lion + wolf 0.526 • shoot,feed,hunt,resemble,breed,spot,tame,kill,encounter • chase • roach + snail 0.500 • repel,squash • crocodile + alligator 0.500 • wrestle,stuff,spot,embroider,tame • goose + pigeon 0.471 • feed,breed,pluck,deter,stuff,slaughter,roast,chase

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