PARANOIA

Loyal citizen Thomas Hancock alerts us to Financial Times writer Gideon Rachman's discovery that the United Kingdom has a real, actual Department of Sensitive Words:

The problem is that Companies House [a UK government agency] deems certain words as “sensitive” because they are thought to convey an impression of authority or trustworthiness. Institute is one such word; British is another. If you want to use a word like this you have to get special permission from a sub-unit of Companies House - the Department of Sensitive Words, which is based in Swansea.

In true Dickensian style, this is not an easy process. Companies House does provide a few guidelines on sensitivity on its web-site (its chapter three). But there is no form you can fill in and no obvious criteria to fulfill. But this is probably for the best. You don’t want any old person calling themselves “British” or “Institute.”

Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber calls this an excellent idea, though his "Modest Proposal" title indicates he may not be 100% serious:

[T]here is a real problem in a political system where an organization with a grand title such as Americans for Fairness, Liberty and Free Choice in the Workplace (this is an invented organization using some of the usual buzzwords -– I imagine that lobbyists automate the process of name creation with a sekrit Perl script) typically consists of nothing more than a few reams of letterhead and a time-share arrangement over some law office’s fax machine. Not only will consumers will end up confused by the profusion of astroturf groups, but the generation of such confusion is precisely the purpose. It is just this kind of market failure that governments are supposed to address.

Hence my modest proposal –- that the Obama administration set up a similar office, with sweeping authority and immediate effect.