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Seeing "Legos" on the Internet has always annoyed me, even though it must be a decade and a half since I last even touched any LEGO bricks. Apparently the compa

Seeing "Legos" on the Internet has always annoyed me, even though it must be a decade and a half since I last even touched any LEGO bricks. Apparently the company doesn't want them called "Legos" either.[0] [0]https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/502086477652959232 https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group/status/502086477652959232 Edit, further interesting discussion http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10839/legos-not-lego http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10839/legos-not-l...

mc32 11y ago
Most people I know call tem Legos, with a few calling them Lego (as if mass uncountable object nouns --which seems weird) but yeah, I don't care much for their trademark protection technique (though I concede they may protect it), so I don't see the need to perpetuate their trademark crusade on their behalf and happily call them Legos.
- stuaxo 11y ago
  Seems like a US thing to call it Legos, never heard anyone in the UK refer to it as anything but Lego.
  - arthurfm 11y ago
    I live in the UK too and have never heard anyone refer to Lego as Legos. The latter sounds extremely odd (in the same way that 'sheeps' does). I wish North Americans would use the correct pronunciation.
    - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      US person here. I grew up calling them Legos. I don't know why. I even spent a Summer in Sweden (and visited Denmark several times) when I was a child; yet I still wound up calling them Legos. I don't refer to sheep (plural) as sheeps, though. I'm just happy that my neighbors aren't including an errant apostrophe ie: Lego's
    - mc32 11y ago
      It's not dissimilar from walking up to the counter at a coffee shop and ordering two large coffees. Everyone knows it's two large cups of coffee. So Lego bricks become Legos. Nothing fancy.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    I call the individual articles "bricks" or "pieces" and the collective "lego". UK born and bred.
- unwind 11y ago
  To me it's not at all about trademark protection (I wouldn't write it in all-caps), it's just about how weird it sounds to make it a plural. In Swedish (Lego is from Denmark, but our languages are pretty similar) it's exactly that, a mass uncountable object. A bit like saying "this castle is made out of sands" when talking about a sand castle. It's grains of sands vs sand; pieces of Lego vs just Lego to me. Of course this is all natural language and there is no right or wrong and so on, I just wanted to provide a perspective since it seemed like you interpreted the parent comment differently from how I did.
  - anon4 11y ago
    We'll see what the sands of time have to say about this :)
  - collyw 11y ago
    Lego, or Lego bricks is what would say as a native English speaker, but I guess its really up to the Danes.
  - MindTwister 11y ago
    In danish you usually something is made from "Lego klodser", or simply "Lego", so either the plural is on the bricks part, or not there at all.
slazaro 11y ago
I for one don't care what the creators say. To me it's like the "GIF" thing: as a creator, especially when it's years after it's something that's part of the public consciousness, you don't have any say as to how people should pronounce the name of your product. Language is what people use, not what some people dictate.
vacri 11y ago
I'm in the middle. "Legos" annoys me in the same way "sheeps" does, but at the same time, "LEGO" also annoys me. It's "Lego". It's a contraction, not an acronym - and stuff any company that demands we futz with our language just to write their name :)
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
I really don't care for the problems with our USPTO related law(s), but if you're going to go full-internet-trade-mark-pedant or whatever shouldn't you make use of the unicode glyphs ® or ™ when referring to LEGO^® bricks? I do like the top comment at SE though, that was a pleasant surprise. excerpt from SE comment follows: >Owners of trademarks are free to make whatever pronouncements they like regarding how people should use their trademarks. Users of the English language, however, have the final say of how the English language works. >Just as watches made by Rolex are “Rolexes”, Apple computers are “Macs”, shoes made by Puma are “Pumas”, cars made by Audi are “Audis”, portable video games made by Nintendo are “Game Boys”, by the same process toys made by Lego are “Legos”.
- OJFord 11y ago
  No, the toys are "Lego sets", the individual pieces are "Lego bricks". What is "a Lego"? That's why you can't pluralise it. Also, it's not an English language-wide thing, it's - as far as I'm aware - limited the US; certainly not practised in the UK.

mc32 11y ago

Most people I know call tem Legos, with a few calling them Lego (as if mass uncountable object nouns --which seems weird) but yeah, I don't care much for their trademark protection technique (though I concede they may protect it), so I don't see the need to perpetuate their trademark crusade on their behalf and happily call them Legos.

stuaxo 11y ago
Seems like a US thing to call it Legos, never heard anyone in the UK refer to it as anything but Lego.
- arthurfm 11y ago
  I live in the UK too and have never heard anyone refer to Lego as Legos. The latter sounds extremely odd (in the same way that 'sheeps' does). I wish North Americans would use the correct pronunciation.
  - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    US person here. I grew up calling them Legos. I don't know why. I even spent a Summer in Sweden (and visited Denmark several times) when I was a child; yet I still wound up calling them Legos. I don't refer to sheep (plural) as sheeps, though. I'm just happy that my neighbors aren't including an errant apostrophe ie: Lego's
  - mc32 11y ago
    It's not dissimilar from walking up to the counter at a coffee shop and ordering two large coffees. Everyone knows it's two large cups of coffee. So Lego bricks become Legos. Nothing fancy.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  I call the individual articles "bricks" or "pieces" and the collective "lego". UK born and bred.
unwind 11y ago
To me it's not at all about trademark protection (I wouldn't write it in all-caps), it's just about how weird it sounds to make it a plural. In Swedish (Lego is from Denmark, but our languages are pretty similar) it's exactly that, a mass uncountable object. A bit like saying "this castle is made out of sands" when talking about a sand castle. It's grains of sands vs sand; pieces of Lego vs just Lego to me. Of course this is all natural language and there is no right or wrong and so on, I just wanted to provide a perspective since it seemed like you interpreted the parent comment differently from how I did.
- anon4 11y ago
  We'll see what the sands of time have to say about this :)
- collyw 11y ago
  Lego, or Lego bricks is what would say as a native English speaker, but I guess its really up to the Danes.
- MindTwister 11y ago
  In danish you usually something is made from "Lego klodser", or simply "Lego", so either the plural is on the bricks part, or not there at all.

slazaro 11y ago

I for one don't care what the creators say. To me it's like the "GIF" thing: as a creator, especially when it's years after it's something that's part of the public consciousness, you don't have any say as to how people should pronounce the name of your product. Language is what people use, not what some people dictate.

vacri 11y ago

I'm in the middle. "Legos" annoys me in the same way "sheeps" does, but at the same time, "LEGO" also annoys me. It's "Lego". It's a contraction, not an acronym - and stuff any company that demands we futz with our language just to write their name :)

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

I really don't care for the problems with our USPTO related law(s), but if you're going to go full-internet-trade-mark-pedant or whatever shouldn't you make use of the unicode glyphs ® or ™ when referring to LEGO^® bricks? I do like the top comment at SE though, that was a pleasant surprise. excerpt from SE comment follows: >Owners of trademarks are free to make whatever pronouncements they like regarding how people should use their trademarks. Users of the English language, however, have the final say of how the English language works. >Just as watches made by Rolex are “Rolexes”, Apple computers are “Macs”, shoes made by Puma are “Pumas”, cars made by Audi are “Audis”, portable video games made by Nintendo are “Game Boys”, by the same process toys made by Lego are “Legos”.

OJFord 11y ago
No, the toys are "Lego sets", the individual pieces are "Lego bricks". What is "a Lego"? That's why you can't pluralise it. Also, it's not an English language-wide thing, it's - as far as I'm aware - limited the US; certainly not practised in the UK.