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Every few years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announces that “Mormon” is a term that should not describe us. See 1979, 1990, 2011. (See BCC coverage of the last attempt.)

Rather, as today’s announcement proclaims, we are members of the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”, or “the restored gospel of Jesus Christ” for short. The new style guide also states the “LDS” abbreviation is disfavored.

These attempts to set aside “Mormonism” as a descriptor have never stuck. I am all in favor of talking, preaching, and prophesying of Christ more frequently. But “Mormon” is too deeply embedded in our lexicon to write out. It’s a pithy shorthand for our most distinguishing characteristic — belief in the Book of Mormon as another Testament of Jesus Christ.

As President Hinckley once said in 1990: “I suppose that regardless of our efforts, we may never convert the world to general use of the full and correct name of the Church. Because of the shortness of the word Mormon and the ease with which it is spoken and written, they will continue to call us the Mormons…We may not be able to change the nickname, but we can make it shine with added luster.”

As with the past attempts, I suspect the only people who will delight in today’s change are prescriptive vs. descriptive linguists. Someone at BYU will earn a Masters by writing a thesis on whether today’s announcement wreaks any measurable real-world effect in word usage. Google Trends exists for this nerdy purpose!

Nonetheless, I’m willing to bet right now the answer is “No.” No, there will no material effect.

Journalists and academics will ignore the style change — the Church’s proffered alternatives eat up too much type space. Moreover, the alternatives are far too generic; they’re likely to be confused with a wide range of Protestant sects incorporating “Jesus Christ” and “Restoration” into their names and theologies.

Social media users will ignore it — “Mormon” is too easy of a self-referential label.

But even more importantly, the Church itself will ignore it. Why? Because the Church has far too much invested in ownership of the “Mormon” name and brand to abandon it.

And when I say “brand,” and “abandon,” I mean that literally. As of today, here are the federal registered trademarks owned by the LDS Church, using the word “Mormon.”

(The Church owns more “Mormon” trademarks than these — including a bunch like “Mormon Savings” and “Mormon in Manhattan” that the Church bought up a few years ago in an attempt to prevail in “Mormon” trademark litigation).

In addition, there are several major uses where the Church is clearly using Mormon as a brand signifier for itself, but does not yet have a federal registered trademark:

Today’s announcement says: “In the coming months, Church websites and materials will be updated to reflect this direction from President Nelson” and eliminate the word “Mormon.”

I believe that … and I don’t. I believe that the website names and branding logos will change. But I don’t believe the Church will ever be willing to cede the intellectual property to all the “Mormon” properties that now exist.

The “Mormon Tabernacle Choir” has long been one of our greatest missionary tools — we’re not about to abandon a name that’s been in existence since 1893. (“The Tabernacle Choir of the Restored Church of Jesus Christ” doesn’t work.)

Nor are we about to abandon our domain name registrations and open the “Mormon” brand up for more hoaxes and brand confusion, like the fake “Mormon-Newsroom” announcement in May that caused so much pain. I’m still surprised the Church didn’t sue for trademark infringement during the May fallout — I suspect that only the hoaxer taking the domain down within a week is what prevented litigation.

So long as we still trademark the word “Mormon” in connection with “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” we can except our people, the press, and society at large are going to continue to use “Mormon” to describe us. That’s just the Mormon (TM) truth.