We have never hid our love for Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off.” It is a pop-propelled earworm that’s burrowed into our jaded heart like a deer tick filled with joy instead of Lyme disease. In short, it is a great song. The best thing we heard all year besides the words “We mistakenly gave you two orders of yam fries, but we won’t charge you.”
So we were intrigued to learn that Swift has trademarked the lyric “this sick beat” from the song. She’s also trademarked other phrases found on her album: “party like it’s 1989,” “cause we never go out of style,” “could show you incredible things” and “nice to meet you, where you been?”
Like most things Taylor Swift-related, these trademarks seem innocuous but will ultimately encroach upon our daily lives.
For instance, her trademark means we can no longer open our much planned vegetable rehabilitation centre called, you guessed it, This Sick Beet.
“Party like it’s 1989” is not as much of an issue for us since we actually have partied in 1989 and it usually involved drinking too much Rock-a-Berry Cooler and throwing up in the back seat of a Honda Civic.
And partying like it’s 1989 for the 25-year-old singer means drinking breast milk, wearing a diaper and nonstop crying, which probably isn’t much different than how she parties in 2015. Oh snap.
“Cause we never go out of style” is something we say when we stare into our closet at the 14 plaid shirts we own and wear on a daily basis, so we’ll have to come up with a new phrase. Perhaps “Yeah, I’m stuck in a fashion rut, so what?” or “sigh” will do. “Man, we’ve really got to branch out and start wearing stripes” could be another one.
On the other hand, we would never say the words “could show you incredible things” or “nice to meet you, where you been?” since we don’t have a lot of incredible things to show people, unless you include our 14 plaid shirts, and “nice to meet you, where you been?” is grammatically incorrect and we are so not down with that.
