“In prose,” scolded George Orwell in his masterful essay “Politics and the English Language,” “the worst thing you can do with words is to surrender them.” Considering the news lately, one wonders if we’ve taken this instruction a bit too literally.

Last month, the internet descended en masse to mock Ohio State University after it was revealed that the school sought to trademark the word “the.” Thanks to Josh Gerben, a sharp-eyed trademark lawyer in Washington, D.C., who spotted and publicized the trademark filing, media outlets and social media denizens took notice of the otherwise mundane goings-on at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. On Aug. 13, Gerben tweeted regarding Ohio State’s filing: “The university claims that the trademark is for a brand of clothing, namely t-shirts, baseball caps, and hats.”