The correspondence between executives at the Coca-Cola Company and representatives of Grove press book company have a clear-cut winner, the Grove press company chooses irony and aporia to put the Coca-Cola Company in its place.

Grove press executive Seaver uses a good dose of humor in dressing down the Coca-Cola Company for its ridiculous claim of copyright infringement against a recently published book. Seaver writes in his letter a witty chiasmus by saying “This, we think, should protect your interest and in no way harm ours”. Sever uses humor throughout the letter using irony repeatedly in lines reminding Coke that they do not in fact own all the words in the universe and going on to tell them that they would “be happy to give Coke the residual benefit of our advertising”. This is a course funny because Coke, no doubt, believes that they do not need a tiny little publishing house to help them advertise their hugely popular product.

 

Seaver also uses aporia in lines like “We would certainly not want to dilute the distinctiveness of your trade slogan”. It is clear that this is an expression of feigned doubt.Coca-Cola attempts to make a clear cut case citing many examples throughout history of this phrase being associated with their product. Their argument fails, in the form of the common sense test. Common sense, of course, dictates that a company cannot own four words, no matter how big they are. The audacity of the Coca-Cola Company believing that these four words used together is a copyright infringement for all time is idiotic in and of itself. Going after wordsmiths from a publishing company was probably a poor marketing decision on their part. You can almost feel the dripping sense of irony throughout the entire letter from the publisher.

There is no battle royale here unfortunately, the Coca-Cola argument falls flat and Grove press wins hands down with a very funny letter