The phrase “stitch and bitch” has been in use for many years as a popular nickname for social circles that meet for knitting and conversation. Circa 1997 a company called Sew Fast, Sew Easy trademarked what it called its Stitch ‘n’ Bitch Cafe and since then has deployed lawyers to shut down use of the phrase by many local and online hobbyists’ clubs. A protest site, “Free To Stitch/Free To Bitch“, has traced earlier mentions of the phrase including by Anne Macdonald in her 1988 book No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting, who describes it as having been used for such a club during World War II. (Catherine Elsworth, “It’s getting bitchy in knitting circles”, Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Feb. 11)(more links).
Stitch & Bitch, trademarked
The phrase “stitch and bitch” has been in use for many years as a popular nickname for social circles that meet for knitting and conversation. Circa 1997 a company called Sew Fast, Sew Easy trademarked what it called its Stitch ‘n’ Bitch Cafe and since then has deployed lawyers to shut down use of the […]
2 Comments
Boy, way to manage your PR with your primary consituents! Morons.
Oh, and the legal side of this is appalling, too.
Phrases in the public domain can get hijacked by corporations.
How long has the phrase ‘plan b’ been around? A common phrase used by the drug maker of Plan B to indicate exactly the same thing as the common usage.
But now the phrase has been hijacked and any time I ‘plan b’ it I run the risk of a nasty letter.