I was blogging on this topic and stopped to do some research on the concept of trademarks losing their ownership. I came across your post and disagree with the use of “genericide.”
Wait. Do you disagree that people sometimes use the term or that Ian called it waggish, and it’s related collocation, “victim of genericide,” hopeless?
“runner pat”: Please except my apologies. I didn’t realize that I should’ve linked to the column. I will from now on.
“Gfactor”: I think that the term is being used incorrectly. “Genericide” is the elimination of things generic. And a victim of “genericide” is probably someone who no longer is able to drink coffee because their Starbucks has been eliminated. The article in question talk about things becoming generic.
When a trademark becomes generic, it should be termed (my word, my opinion) teemicide (T M icide), or… it’s been “gentrified,” (though this relates more to race).
I think the word you’re looking for may be Genericised; when a product brand name (Such as Thermos or Hoover or Aspirin) becomes the Generic Name for all products of that type, regardless of manufacturer.
Ian called the usage, “waggish” and “hopeless.” In other words, he’s arguing against it. Teemicide sounds like you’ve killed one of our board members (Cecil calls them the Teeming Millions). :eek:
The formatting of this article is really screwed up: There are random line-breaks everywhere. (Inserting hard line breaks at all in that article was a mistake, but the sheer frequency is very off-putting.)
Just an observation - Aspirin is a generic name in the US, but is still a brand name in Canada; you’ll find lots of bottles of ASA or Acetylsalicylic Acid up here.
