Note: In my list, I have the actual name of the product, plus the alternate name, both separated by a slash (/), and the bolded name being the one I hate.
I have a couple:
Plush/Stuffed animal - What if it’s not an animal? Is it a stuffed human? Is it a stuffed whale?
Tissue/Kleenex - What if the brand isn’t Kleenex? You don’t hear people say, “Go get me a Puffs; I’m stuffy,” do you?
Can’t think of any more at the moment, but I will return if I think of any more.
The word “plush” doesn’t sit too well with me, as I only have a vague idea of what “plush” actually means and those toy stuffed animals/whatevers don’t quite fit my vague mental image of what plush is. Besides, “plush” is an adjective, not a noun. “Stuffed animal” is wrong too, because that is was a taxidermist creates. So maybe “toy stuffed animal” is the best description, at least when the object is a representation of an actual animal. You can get toy stuffed Cthulhu too. I used to have a toy stuffed Orca. I wish I still had it, but it went into the dumpster some years ago during a mad frenzied decluttering orgy I had.
Kleenex is just a brand name that devolved to become the generic name (much to the dismay of Kimberly Clark, no doubt). But there are oodles of examples of these. “Refrigerator”, “Escalator”, and even “Aspirin” were all brand names that became genericized. ETA: “Heroin” too, I think.
This is just a Proprietary Eponym, where a trademarked brand name is so popular it becomes a noun for similar products. Band-Aid, Thermos, Fuzzbuster, even Heroin as previously mentioned. There are a lot of them.
If this is all you have to bitch about you have a pretty good life.
This may not be what the OP has in mind since the product did not irritate me. But as a young man living on TV dinners, I used to call Swanson Hungry Man dinners “Hungry Fucker dinners.”
Well I’ll tell you what irritated me about the name “Hungry Man” dinners was that if you were actually, y’know, HUNGRY, it could take at least three of them to constitute an actually sufficient meal.
One could list a great many products that don’t live up to their overly promising names.
Micky D’s, but that’s because of a guy I used to work with who thought that was the cleverest expression ever, and expected people to laugh for write him in for president or something every fucking time.
I always thought that “going to the john” had to be somewhat aggravating to guys named John. That and hookers customers are known as johns, but that’s kind of opposite of the product as its more like the user of the product.
Denim jacket/jean jacket- Denim is the fabric; jeans are the name of the pants made from that fabric.
Soda/Coke - Soda is a carbonated beverage, which can be cola, lemon lime or any other number of flavors. Coke is a specific brand of cola. I know this is a regionalism but it grates.
This is actually a mispronunciation, but I’m mentioning it anyway because I cannot complain about it enough…
Reese’s (peanut butter cups)/Reesies- Just NO!
Completely made up proprietary term invented (and trademarked) by the national association of real estate boards to help perpetuate the ridiculous (and outrageously expensive) monopoly real estate agents have in the US.
Actually, this is wrong. “Kleenex,” although often used in a generic manner, is still a valid, enforceable trademark. Kimiberly Clark’s competitors can’t use it for their facial tissues. This is true of many other brand names that are widely used in a generic manner–Dumpster, Google, Xerox, Seeing Eye Dog, Jet Ski, Jacuzzi, Crock Pot, Taser, Breathalyzer, Zamboni, Chapstick, Ping-Pong, Frisbee, Popsicle, Q-Tips, Rollerblades, Scotch Tape, Sharpie, Realtor, Tupperware, Velcro, Band-Aids, X-Acto knife, Post-Its, Styrofoam, …
These names, although often used generically, have not been genericized.
Yeah, that bugs me, too. Especially since I’m not good with acronyms, so the first 8-10 times I saw it, I thought, “what the hell is that?” Some salad in a restaurant that includes EVOO. Some weird new ingredient? Do I want to try it, or will it ruin the whole salad? And then I feel dumb asking the waiter what it is, and discovering it’s the most common salad-dressing in the world.
Dude, as you seem well able to remember whenever you want to kvetch about something minor, nobody ever said that the Pit was reserved for bitching only about the worst things in one’s life. Frivolous rants about relatively trivial issues are also permitted.
