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I’m surprised how long yo-yo lasted
And that Frisbee still has
Where is hoover
Congressional cemetery
Zoom was actually a word before 2011
The TV series was in 1972
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_(1972_TV_series)?wprov=sfla1
Not with that meaning but yes, poor terminology on the visual since it implies it was not.
I suppose the title “brand names that became common words” implies that it was a brandname before being a common word, otherwise the reader should pretty much never assume that.
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Not to mention many of these are literally still brand names and have not in fact been ruled generic.
Oh I see now they’ve made the generic ones dark grey.
True, but it has gained additional meaning and uses. Before 2011, you could not “join a zoom”, for example.
And uber was before 2009.
Trademarks are context sensitive, and zoom was not used as a term for video calls before that. It is interesting that that’s the only one on the list that isn’t also a made up word
Where do you draw the line between made up words and non-made up words? It’s not like a supernova explosion creates new words that land on a forming planet so that a billion years later a new sentient species can just pick them up from the ground and start using them.
Isn’t google a real thing in numbers.
No gogol is a number
Über is also not made up 👀
Super Hero is trade marked??? That one was surprising.
Something I find interesting, lino was replaced by vinyl which was worse and plasticy but cheaper and the name carried over.
Most people when they think of floor lino thinka actually of vinyl rather than the actual original!
Wait what? Peoole call pvc flooring linoleum?
Vinyl is horrible, but I really like LVP. I guess the solution was more vinyl.
I’d maybe add Solo Cups.
That one is weird for us Aussies since a ‘Solo’ for us is a local lemon squash drink
Hearing ‘Solo Cup’ I just think of a cup of Solo haha
Here it’s a big cup, typically at a house party and holding alcohol.
The red ones? We have those too but I think they’re just called party cups. Put some Solo in there and you’d have a Solo Solo Cup!
Yep. And the reason I mentioned it is because I just bought some generic red cups from Target and got asked where the Solo Cups came from.
Solo is amazing.
Onesie??? For real? All the others i already knew, but that one got me.
Can you explain zipper then? What’s one called besides zipper?
Wait, who owns super hero?
Both Marvel and DC. Look it up on Wikipedia for more details.
How did they both end up owning it? I checked Wikipedia but don’t see where it explains how it happened.
Nevertheless, variations on the term “Super Hero” or “Superhero” are jointly claimed by DC Comics and Marvel Comics as trademarks. Registrations of “Super Hero” marks have been maintained by DC and Marvel since the 1960s, including U.S. Trademark Serial Nos. 72243225 and 73222079.[66] In 2009, the term “Super Heroes” was registered as a typography-independent “descriptive” US trademark co-owned by DC and Marvel.[67] Both DC Comics and Marvel Comics have been assiduous in protecting their rights in the “Super Hero” trademarks in jurisdictions where the registrations are in force, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and including in respect of various goods and services falling outside comic book publications.[68]
I did a search and found this article that goes into more detail. They applied for a joint ownership trademark to basically stop anyone else from using the term super hero in books, movies, games, toys and more, including shoes?! Pretty interesting.
Basically they were like why be dicks to each other when we can be dicks to everyone?
Can’t wait to see the Iron Man vs All Might lawsuit
I’ve never heard Google, Uber or Zoom used unless it meant the specific company. “Google” became a verb, but I’ve never heard of someone saying they googled something on DuckDuckGo, for example.
nice try, google-lawyer.
I use it exactly like that all the time.
“Google it” means look it up on the Internet. My kids don’t use Chrome, they use Google (probably call it that because it’s the homepage of Chrome).
I’ve heard people say they’re going to uber home. They sometimes use Lyft.
And I’ve definitely heard people say they were on a zoom call even when it was Microsoft Teams or Google …what is the Google one called again? I don’t remember anymore because people will say Google zoom call!!
A google zoom. (actually its meet)
Interesting! Didn’t know they’d become generic terms like that.
Citing a comment I’ve recently seen, it’s amazing how humanity managed to produce only one generation actually competent with computers.
I don’t know that I agree with that. Before my generation (X) the computer geeks had to flip dip switches to set IRQs. Before that there were punch cards. Before that there were vacuum tubes that needed to be replaced.
We’ve only really ever done what was needed to get our shit working with as little effort as possible. I’ve never used punch cards or changed vacuum tubes.
TBF it’s Google Chrome and it’s owned by Google.
That’s like complaining that someone who drives a Jeep Wrangler calls it a Jeep
Jeep shouldn’t be on this list either, it’s still brand specific
You’ve never heard zoom used as a regular word to mean fast? The word itself is older than the program.
Obviously I mean only in the specific context of “a video conference call.”
Hoover
It’s not used as a generic trademark in the US and the chart says it was made by an attorney in the US state of Colorado, presumably for an American audience. There’s a chance the creator of the chart has never even heard of a vacuum cleaner being called a “hoover” if it wasn’t a Hoover-brand vacuum.
The first time I saw a Brit mention hoovering their house I misunderstood and thought they were claiming they had made their house float in the air.
Losing yo-yo right before the centennial anniversary is pretty funny.
Wait, are these the dates when the brand that eventually was deemed a “common word” were first trade marked? I was reading this as the years they were deemed common words.
Cause 2011 is WAYYYY too early for zoom to be common. If anything, that would’ve been Skype on 2011. Similar thing for Tupperware and zipper.
Also, wtf was heroin’s common name before being branded heroin? Lol, also, I can’t help but imagine heroin got its name as some kind of “there’s a hero in every needle” marketing campaign.
It’s from the German word “heroisch”, which is basically “heroic”. They used it being a homonym for “heroine” to use women heroes or Valkyrie in marketing for a bit, because it’ll save you from that nasty cough.
It didn’t really go by anything before, since it’s not something super easy to make, and so the first people to really make a lot of it was Bayer, and they named it heroin.
Before heroin people had morphine, and heroin had been made as “diamorphine”, but it just wasn’t really a thing.
In the 80’s there was a brand of cough suppressant pills with codeine (prescription only) called Tussigon, as codeine is a an anti-tussive (anti-cough).
They’re still all over the place. It’s the main ingredient of lean.
year the brand name was first introduced.
It says so in the legend. Zoom has been a word for a long time but it now also means “participate in a (video) teleconference”, which is a new meaning directly linked to the zoom software released in 2011. When a word became generic is usually very hard to pinpoint exactly (except for zoom that was 2020)
For heroin: I don’t think there was heroin before the introduction of the heroin brand. Bayer literally invented the substance. (Wikipedia says it was invented 23 years earlier in Britain from morphine, but the inventer didn’t do anything with it so it was reinvented later). It was also not a drug you take to get high, it was an over the counter cough suppressant; no needle or spoon or lighter involved. Wild times for sure…
It was diacetyl morphine before Bayer marketed it. Fun fact; the acetyl groups get cleaved before it binds to a receptor so it’s just plain old morphine again.
Derp, thanks for pointing out the legend. Totally missed it as I gave the thing a once over.
But also, obviously this means heroin’s name must come from “a hero in every pill”
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Who says “zoom” as a verb? People say “video chat” or, more realistically, “facetime” for all video chats.
Yeah, it seems like facetime would be more at risk for becoming generic. If it weren’t for Apple, that is.
No one I know would use facetime… That suggests using a phone for a business meeting. Bad angles, shakey image… very unprofessional.
For a business meeting you need a computer which means we’re zooming, regardless of the platform
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about “zoom meetings” when the meetings are actually held on google meet, or webx.
I’ve used Zoom in previous companies to speak to clients, and have never heard anyone use it as a term for video calls. I have absolutely no idea where this has come from, but it’s definitely not true…
I work in tech. Everyone.
Who says “zoom” as a verb?
Zoomers.
Let’s do a zoom meeting can conceivably be on Teams I guess
I’ve met a lot of people who do this through my work from home job
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