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Here's an idea: "New York City"

Because I like reading without the burden of "thinking," I occassionally pick up am New York. It is a good thing I did. Otherwise I might never have known that New York is in the process of renaming The Big Apple. New York City has filed a trademark application for the phrase "The World's Second Home" (a phrase already in use by the City's 2012 Olympic committee) to use on T-shirts and other promotional geegaws.

This would be unremarkable (after all, the Olympics are 20% sport, 30% pathos and 50% selling stuff) but for a not-so-coincidental coincidence: "The Big Apple" is in the public domain. In other words, it isn't enough for the City to sell t-shirts and temporary tattoos and keychains for the Olympics: it has to have a proprietary mark. Of course it does. New York may be the world's second home, but remember: you are just renting.

That said, I don't think that the City's "Second Home" merch will move nearly as well as "Big Apple" stuff. Does anyone have any ideas for a new trademark? Here are mine:

• Just Like Home: A Tragic Past and an Emotionally Distant Present
• The Home of Starbucks' Pricing Strategy
• Come Now, Before It Is Just Like Your Hometown