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A miniature float from the 2011 parade by the Carnival krewe formerly known as 'tit Rex.The pronunciation is questionable and the typography is a headache, but the board of directors of the tiny Mardi Gras marching club formerly known as ’tit Rex has added an unusual symbol to the krewe’s name in hopes of avoiding a legal showdown with the venerable Rex parading organization.
The new krewe title is exactly the same, except that the “e” in Rex will heretofore be inverted, ’tit Rex president Jeremy Yuslum said.
The upside-down e, Yuslum said, is known as a schwa, and is used in phonetic spellings to indicate the vowel sound in words such as “the.”
In March, a representative of the 140-year-old Rex parade organization instructed the three-year-old ’tit Rex organization, known for towing shoe-box-sized satiric floats through the Bywater neighborhood, to cease using the term “Rex” or face court action. A Rex lawyer argued that use of the term was an infringement on the much older krewe’s trade name.