4 ms·
As soon as we stop saying Jeep, Walkman, Zipper, Kleenex, Laundromat, Xerox and all the other proprietary eponyms
by rb2k_ 15y ago
As soon as we stop saying Jeep, Walkman, Zipper, Kleenex, Laundromat, Xerox and all the other proprietary eponyms
- huxley 15y ago... and Google. If people really hated Apple marketing, they probably should be ecstatic at the idea of one of their trademarks becoming genericized.
- jwoah12 15y agoWell to be fair, it's been several years since I've heard anyone call an SUV a Jeep (other than a Jeep), a tissue a Kleenex, or a copy machine a Xerox. But Zipper was a brand name?? What the hell is the generic product name for a zipper?
- skrebbel 15y agoIn fact, they should sue all programmers who ever made a zip() function for trademark violations! (in fact, even more confusingly, most zip() functions don't interleave elements, like zippers do, but return a sequence of paired tuples - this, naturally, gives Zippers a bad name who wants their pants to pairwise join)
- huxley 15y agoDoesn't seem to have a consistent one, clasp fastener or separable fastener are earlier generic terms. BTW Zipper wasn't trademarked by the creator or manufacturer but by BF Goodrich when used on their zipped-up boots. Two which surprised me were Ping Pong and Adrenaline.
- TazeTSchnitzel 15y agoUm, in Britain, we call them "zips". It's generic and not trademarked.
- rb2k_ 15y agoIt might just be my German origin, but I wouldn't call an SUV a Jeep either. We do however call all of the off road-capable bulky cars with the roll-over protection thingy ("Überrollbügel" in German, can't think of the English equivalent) Jeep.