“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.” Originally founded as the “Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College,” the Ohio General Assembly later passed a law in 1878 officially changing the school’s name to “The Ohio State University.” Ever since, Ohio State University graduates have enjoyed the somewhat pompous pleasure of stressing the article when referencing their alma mater and the outright insufferable habit of interjecting the word when it is neglected by the uniformed or the unwilling. (They should have stuck with OAMC, if you ask me.) Naturally, the idea of a middling public research university with a scandal-ridden football team chronically unable to win postseason games against Southeasterly opponents attempting to...