THE TOPICS. What is in a name?

In early February, custom workers at the Belgian port of Antwerp destroyed a shipment of 2,352 cans of Miller High Life beer. No, the beer was not sour or flat or counterfeit. The name “Miller” is not obscene in French. The sin was the slo gan: “Champagne of Beers,” which Miller has been using since 1906. (It was originally “Champagne of Bottle Beers” but dropped the “Bottle” in 1969.) The 27-nation European Union, which includes France, has a system of protecting geo graphical designations to make sure food, wine and spirits really come from there and protect them from imitation. Champagne has to come from the Champagne region of France. Even here at home, starting in 2005 it was decreed that sparkling wines from the U.S. could no longer have the word “Champagne” on their labels. That’s why you see a bottle that looks like Champagne, tastes like it and pops like it, is labeled “sparkling wine” or some such dodge. The French have always been testy about calling something “Champagne.” The Champagne region successfully banned producers in the Touraine region from labeling local sparkling wines as Champagne -- in 1843. The French Champagne industry keeps eight lawyers on staff to prosecute those who would misuse the name. They have successfully sued the Yves Saint-Laurent perfume formerly known as “Champagne,” which was banned in 1993 after a lawsuit, and the “Champagne”colored iPhone was ultimately called “gold” after Apple was threatened with a lawsuit. Besides Champagne, the French are very defensive about their language and try to keep it pure. They even have an agency, The Association for the Defense of the French Language -- I assume that’s an English translation -which is a watchdog looking for foreign words, especially English, trying to sneak into their vocabulary. Now it is suing – get this -- Notre-Dame Cathedral. Since the 2019 fire, many of the signs explaining Notre-Dame’s reconstruction are written in French and English. The watchdogs demand the signage be in at least two other languages besides French, citing a law from 1994 that stipulates this. The association previously forced the Eiffel Tower to add Spanish to its signs alongside English and French. It charged that only translating signs into English helps increase the dominance of that language. Speaking of the French, in 1966 when President Charles DeGaulle told a U.S. general that he wanted all NATO troops including Ameri-

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derful Swiss chocolate, Toblerone, easily recognizable by its distinctive shape, a yellow, triangular box with bright red print, and the iconic image of Switzerland’s Matterhorn mountain. Wait! The brand’s U.S. owner, Mondelez, decided to move production to Slovakia. Under Swiss law, only milk-based products produced exclusively in Switzerland can use the country’s symbols in their packaging and marketing. So the Matterhorn will be replaced by a generic summit – maybe the Houston Heights. Instead of the chocolate being stamped “Switzerland,” it will now read “Established in Switzerland.” We must wonder who, exactly, makes the Swiss Army Knife? Probably the Chinese.

Well, two can play that game. In 2015, French and Swiss cheesemakers demanded that U.S. cheesemakers stop calling their Gruyère cheese. “Gruyère.” They said that only cheese that hails from Gruyère, the mountainous region between France and Switzerland, can be called “Gruyère.” A U.S. court ruled that the label “Gruyère” is generic, adding that it is “a category of cheese that may be made anywhere.”

Panama hats are made in Ecuador. French fries are made at McDonald’s. Custom officials have not yet seized Belgian waffles, Brussel sprouts or Italian dressing. If, like the French and Swiss, you are a stickler for honesty in origin, don’t call those fall baseball playoffs “the World Series.” It’s the U.S. Series because only U.S. teams compete. The World Series is actually the World Championship Series, which Japan recently won. Incidentally, if baseball is “America’s pastime,” why are its baseballs, made by Rawlings in Costa Rica and China?

Speaking of honest names in sports, it is the Arlington Rangers and Cowboys, the New Jersey Giants and Jets. The SMU football team sports “Dallas” on its jerseys when actually the school is in University Park. In 2006, the NFL Seattle team, the Seahawks, came up with niffy title for their fans: “The 12th Man.” Apparently no one in Fog City had ever been to a football game at College Station and seen, across the stadium a huge sign: “Home of the 12th Man.” The Aggies, who had proudly used that slogan for more than a century and had trademarked it, sued. They got $140,000 for limited rights of a five-year deal. The Ags should have demanded a running back to be named later. The Indianapolis Colts started using the “12th Man” without the school’s permission. The lawsuit was settled with no money changing hands and the Colts stopped using it. One more: The City of Forth Worth hatched a cute logo for Cow Town, as it calls itself: the silhouette of the head and horns of a Texas Longhorn, rather like the logo UT has been using since forever. UT sued, but considering that Forth Worth is the home of the TCU Horn Frogs, that logo made no sense.

The next time you are in a restaurant and ask for butter, if it comes in those little foilwrapped cubes, look carefully at the wrapper. It might read “Buttery Favored” or “ButterLike Spread,” but not “Champagne.” Honest in labelling gets sticky when it comes to names, like Robert Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan), Reginald Dwight (Elton John) and even Marion Robert Morrison (John Wayne).

Oh, as for those 2,352 bottles of Miller High Life, Belgian customs said the destruction of the cans was carried out “with the utmost respect for environmental concerns by ensuring that the entire batch, both contents and container, was recycled in an environmentally responsible manner.” Translation: “We drank it.”

Ashby originates at ashby2@comcast.net