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It feels weird replying like this to someone in the UK(according to your profile), but...

Since the original story broke I've been thinking that I would have granted the Candy trademark, but perhaps I'm being too short sighted.

To my British ear candy isn't a common word at all. I say this understanding that the word is common in American English(candy store, candy bar, etc).

The only candy usage examples I can think of are the non-hyphenated Candyfloss(Cotton Candy to Americans), and the even weaker related use as a process as in "candied fruit".

Please point out that I'm wrong. It has been niggling me for a couple of weeks now, and I suspect I must just be looking at this the wrong way.

Edit: Remembered Candyfloss → Cotton Candy the moment I hit send.

4 comments

Candy is indeed uncommon here, but not unheard of. You'll find it on confectionary packaging to describe the contents. There's also a chain of stores in London (elsewhere now?) called Cyber Candy that sell exotic (OK so mostly american) candy.

So it is in some use, but not that common.

Personally I object to anyone that tries to trademark a single word of our shared language. They shouldn't be able to fence bits off like that, they should have to make up their own word if they want it trademarked.

Good example for me with Cyber Candy, I've walked by one countless times but didn't think of it.

I'll make a U-turn here and say that I agree with you about using made up words, but for a different reason. I'd probably rather see random non-word brands like PreBarpTzoh, than keep having to remember region specific names for trademark reasons. Lynx/Axe is the example that immediately springs to mind, a future Candy Mush Tiger and <insert non-EU name> could be another.

>To my British ear candy isn't a common word at all. //

It's pretty common but not to refer to hard boiled or jelly sweets. It has been co-opted, by analogy with sweets, to refer to a particular colour palette - as such is often used when referencing that (eg in cosmetics); you'll probably recall the candy-coloured iMacs.

It's not however commonality in general parlance that is the relevant measure - candy is and has been used in video games for a while to refer to brightly coloured shapes. King's use (since 2012) isn't original and so isn't distinctive enough to indicate the origin of computing products [and others in the relevant TM classification areas] bearing the title "Candy" is King.com, Ltd..

If it were on commonality in street parlance then candy would be pretty common among younger generations that are more influenced by USA culture.

Saga? They might as well apply for "game" as an RTM.

This is one of the points where British English and American English diverge. Candy in the US is the generic word with the identical meaning as what in the UK is just called "sweets". Same thing as trousers / pants, although not quite as amusing.

If not popular names like Candy and Crystal, then what do strippers in the UK call themselves?