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Re: Redskins Trademark cancelled
Word definitions are determined one of two ways: prescriptively (authoritarian) or descriptively (democratically, determined by how they are in face used). Contemporary American dictionaries lean towards the latter.
Anyone who has looked up words in a dictionary knows there are often more than one senses or meanings listed for a given word.
The word Redskins--the team name--is obviously not used disparagingly nor as a slur (the team named themselves that, fans are proud of the name, etc.).
Therefore the patent office (as are name-changers) is making the error of conflating two different usages or meanings of the word Redskins, and should reverse their decision.
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