I remember at the time of the Jonestown massacre everybody referred to the victims having taken cyanide and kool-ade. Yesterday I read an article by Tim Cahill who was at Jonestown a week after the massacre and he said the ground was littered with Flavor-ade packets, which he described as a cheap drink powder.
My dad is a Scrabble ® player and he has received very explicit instructions about having to always put the registered trademark symbol after the name. For some companies it is just too much bother to protect their brand name, while other people will go IMHO overboard like McDonald’s and the IOC. The IOC has cracked down on Olympic restaurants and other businesses who use the term without permission.
Keith
No, all trademarked products need a generic. Technically, a trademark is sort of a proper adjective that modifies the generic. Like Sanka (brand) decaffeinated coffee. (They emphasize that it’s a brand in the commercials to make sure everyone knows that. I mean, no one talks like that in real life, unless they’re imitating the commercials.)
My point is that if the generic is difficult to pronounce and unfamiliar to the general public, they deserve to lose their trademark.
Actually, drugs usually have at least three names: scientific (which is the cumbersome name you’re thinking of), generic and a trademark. The company that develops the drug usually comes up with both the generic and the trademark. For example, I have here a package of Pepcid AC which has a generic of famotidine. That’s nowhere near as cumbersome as its scientific name (found on the web): N’-(aminosulfonyl)-3-[[[2-[(diaminomethylene)amino]-4-thiazolyl]methyl] thio] propanimidamide.
But the trademark actually refers to something slightly different than the other two names. The scientific and generic names refer to the active ingredient. The trademark refers to the combination of the active ingredient along with inactive ingredients (binders, fillers, etc.) Occasionally, these have a synergistic effect that the active ingredient alone does not have. This effect may not be identified in testing.
When someone else makes the drug (after the patent expires), they often use a different combination of inactive ingredients which may not have that effect or have a different effect. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen very often, but it has happened.
This discussion would be helped immensely by the contributions of an attorney who deals in trademarks. I’d go look the stuff up, but it’s damn complicated and I have to coach a soccer game later.
Another note on the Apple Computers/Apple Records dispute: part of their final agreement included a bit that Apple couldn’t use musical instrument names or sounds. One of their default system beep sounds was a xylophone-like chime, which they wanted to call ‘xylo’. But, of course, they couldn’t.
Gee, hate to disagree (nah, I loveto disagree!) but…
pepperspray is becoming much more common. LEOs have probably been taught not to use the brand name, and so, they’re calling 'em peppersprays more often and the others are following their lead.
Kids say neither. The say, can I have a Sip ™. (Fruit drinks in boxes with their own straws.) I know, I know, when they do get the powedered stuff, it’s usually called by its flavor – want a cherry drink, baby?
I say acetaminophen. I also say ibuprofen and chlorpheniramine maleate. But, I know that’s just me trying to spread the word to people to buy the generics. Buying name brand drugs is just plain stupid.
I have to disagree. I hear people asing for tissues slightly more than for kleenex.
This is another one that goes with velcro as having an obscure generic (expanded polystyrene). Ok, so it’s not as bad as velcro, but how many out there have actually heard someone use its generic?
Personally, I call them xeroxen. I wonder if that violates their trademark?
Wow! I’ve had an actual sighting of the phrase “Velcro hook-and-loop fastener”: The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman. (Originally titled The Psychology of Everyday Things.) Pages 194-5.
Unless I’m reading you wrong, I think you have cause and effect backwards ‘Xerographic’ refers to the process that they use, which is why the company is called Xerox (It means ‘dry writing’ in Greek, IIRC), thus ‘Xerographic Copy’ would be a generic term.
