The NY Times' Diner's Journal reports on an interesting New York law that prohibits including the words "library, school, academy, institute," and other words in a business name, unless the state education commissioner consents to the proposed business name. A new business owner wanted to name his store "The Chocolate Library," but the state's Education Department nixed the proposal because it believed the proposed name was misleading. I'm trying to imagine how the general public could be misled by a store named "The Chocolate Library." Would consumers imagine that they would walk into a library constructed entirely of chocolate, sort of like Homer Simpson's "Land of Chocolate" daydream? Would they perhaps imagine that all of the chocolate in the store could be borrowed rather than purchased? Or that the chocolate would be organized according to the Dewey Decimal System? It seems like a decision worth reconsidering.
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