What's in a Name? Answer: Profit

While all authors are entitled to the full protection of the law when they place their work under copyright, it is not possible to copyright actual titles. This has Raymond Sokolov, a distinguished restaurant and food critic for the Wall Street Journal, acting a little grumpy in the wake of a new cookbook called The Saucier’s Apprentice: One Long Strange Trip Though the Great Cooking Schools of Europe. He's upset because 30 years ago he published a book entitled -- you guessed it -- The Saucier’s Apprentice: A Modern Guide to Classic French Sauces for the Home.

Sokolov's complaint is not that he should have exclusive rights to just any title, especially if it's a common word or phrase. Instead, he's a bit miffed that the new book, by Bob Spitz, steals his unique play on words. Sokolov bitterly expressed the hope that "a confused buying public will buy my 'Saucier’s Apprentice' instead of Spitz's" and, when asked if he has a new book in the works, joked, "I am thinking about one, and maybe I should call it 'The Da Vinci Code.'"

For his part, Spitz offered only a cryptically inadequate self-defense: "I interviewed a lot of people in the food industry for my book and not one of them mentioned there was already something else with that title. I thought it was a stroke of genius, but as it turns out it was Ray Sokolov’s stroke of genius."

Man, if only we had some kind of worldwide network that contained information on things like books so you wouldn't just have to rely on the information available to individual people! In fact, it would be great if you could search this network for the title 'The Saucier's Apprentice' and the first thing that came up would be Sokolov's book! If that were true and Spitz still didn't change the title, we would have to come up with some crazy theory, like his sinister publisher said "Hey, this guy's book came out 30 years ago and you can't copyright titles, anyway. Also, I see big money in the whole Harry Potter tie-in."

Sokolov shouldn't get mad though. This is just how the sauce pours. Instead, he should get even. I recommend he re-release The Saucier's Apprentice with a new title. My thoughts:

Get Saucy

The Unbearable Lightness of Sauce

No Love Sauced

Who's the Sauce?

Don't Sauce Me

Your Gain Is My Sauce

Sauce, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

A Tale of Two Sauces

The Taming of the Sauce

Pride and Sauce

Dr. Sauce-vago

Crime and Sauce

A Passage to Sauce

For Whom the Sauce Boils

OK, maybe I'm going overboard . . .