Brand names and trademarks that are often used as generic terms

[AY1975]

There are a lot of brand names and trademarks that people tend to use as generic terms when referring to any product of that type whether it actually is that particular brand or not, but in most if not all cases there's a generic term that you should really use instead if the item that you're referring to isn't one of the brand in question.

Here are a few examples, with the generic term in brackets.

Hoover (vacuum cleaner)
Hula Hoops (potato rings (I think there's another company that calls them potato rings but AFAIK that's just a generic term))
iPad (tablet)
iPod (MP3 player)
PlayStation (games console)
Walkman (personal stereo)

There are some games that are often referred to by the best known brand name but there are also other versions of them with a different name. For example Connect 4 (companies other than MB Games use names such as Four in a Row) and Jenga (the wooden tower where you take it in turns to remove a piece from near the bottom and then place it on the top until it falls over: again firms other than MB use other names for their own version such as Topple).

I used to think breathalyser was a particular make of breath tester but I believe that it is actually a generic term.

 

[Sorcerer]

Public address systems are sometimes referred to as Tannoys, but in actuality Tannoy is a manufacturer of PA systems as well as loudspeakers.

 

[pdeaves]

Velcro is, I understand, a proprietary name (or at least, was).

 

[Purple Train]

Biro.

 

[david1212]

Hoover (vacuum cleaner)

now also if not overtaken by Dyson

Go back 50+ years
Ewbank for manual i.e. non-electric carpet sweeper

Biro.

or Bic for ballpoint pen

Duracell for any alkaline battery
Dulux for any emulsion or gloss paint
Polyfilla for wall / plaster crack filler
Black & Decker for electric drill or other electric tool

These two perhaps more in trade / industry where other brands available, often the suppliers own so automatically reordered
Evo-stick or UHU for any contact adhesive
Araldite for any two-part epoxy adhesive

 

[AY1975]

now also if not overtaken by Dyson

Go back 50+ years
Ewbank for manual i.e. non-electric carpet sweeper


or Bic for ballpoint pen

Duracell for any alkaline battery
Dulux for any emulsion or gloss paint
Polyfilla for wall / plaster crack filler
Black & Decker for electric drill or other electric tool

These two perhaps more in trade / industry where other brands available, often the suppliers own so automatically reordered
Evo-stick or UHU for any contact adhesive
Araldite for any two-part epoxy adhesive

And Blu Tack for any blue Blu Tack style sticky stuff, and TippEx for any correction fluid, and Pritt Stick for any glue stick, and Sellotape for any sticky tape.

 

[pdeaves]

TippEx for any correction fluid

Once upon a time, it was 'Snopake' (is that the correct spelling?) before TippEx had a greater market share. I remember 30-ish years ago working with people who routinely said 'Snopake', and being familiar with Tippex I didn't know what they were talking about!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A couple more suggestions, 'Tupperware' for any closeable plastic container and 'Velcro' for any hook and loop fastening device.

Once upon a time, it was 'Snopake' (is that the correct spelling?) before TippEx had a greater market share. I remember 30-ish years ago working with people who routinely said 'Snopake', and being familiar with Tippex I didn't know what they were talking about!

Had exactly the same experience myself, maybe it was a North-South thing. And yes, it was 'Snopake'.

Evo-stick or UHU for any contact adhesive

That one's actually spelt Evo-Stik, but close enough.

 

[Thirteen]

I've heard someone refer to a game console as an XBox even though it was a PlayStation!!

In terms of tablets, I've never heard iPad being used for anything other than iPads.

 

[Butts]

And Blu Tack for any blue Blu Tack style sticky stuff, and TippEx for any correction fluid, and Pritt Stick for any glue stick, and Sellotape for any sticky tape.

And Post It's ?

 

[SargeNpton]

"Petrol" was first used to describe the product of the Carless, Capel & Leonard company. At the time all other producers used the term "Motor Sprit".

 

[LUYMun]

Travelator was derived from the American brand name "Trav-O-Lator"

 

[Calthrop]

Going off perhaps at tangents, from the main thrust of the thread: but; personal -- past, and present -- "takes" on a couple of the "household names" featuring in this thread.

Public address systems are sometimes referred to as Tannoys, but in actuality Tannoy is a manufacturer of PA systems as well as loudspeakers.

A youthful misapprehension of mine, which lasted for some time: re the name / word "Tannoy". I first encountered it aged fourteen, in 1962; it so happened that although the public-address / loudspeaker outfit of that name has been going since the 1920s: as at '62, I hadn't come across it in that, correct, context.

Was reading for the first time, my all-time favourite railway book: Bryan Morgan's The End of the Line, about minor railways in continental Western Europe as at about the mid-20th century. A part of Morgan's chapter about France, a country greatly loved by him: in which, as often (and understandably), he is waxing wistful about the enormous quantities of French rural light railways which had been running not many decades before his travels in the early 1950s; but which by those early '50s, were totally gone. He writes of time spent at Chartres, in an area of the country particularly hard-hit by light railway closures. "[names of places once served by these lines] come in at dawn and dusk from the [town bus station], once the tramway station. [Various names of places and former light-railway undertakings]"; then: "Ouarville, Baudreville, Arnouville crackles the Tannoy in nasal near-Norman..." -- Morgan was a prose-poet, dealing in "leaps of imagination" -- with my not knowing the true significance of "Tannoy", and with said name looking and sounding as though it could be a French place-name: I interpreted it as being the name of a one-time light railway (long "bustituted"), serving the just-named places, plus the town and / or district of Tannoy. I continued with that misapprehension, for a few years: never thought to look further into the defunct Tannoy railway -- from context per Mr. Morgan, it would have closed probably pre-World War II, and been obliterated -- I had other and more urgent fish to fry.


@Mcr Warrior writes: "A couple more suggestions, "Tupperware" for any closable plastic container ..."

As used by me, to mean such -- "Tupperware" or just "Tupper" -- irrespective of desired jealous patenting by any original inventive Mr. Tupper: whilst I employ the words with that significance -- in a sense they have been "ruined" for me lifelong, by the existence of Martin Tupper (1810 -- 1889): a would-be poet, generally reckoned to be a strong -- English-nationality -- rival of William McGonagall, for the title of "worst poet ever in the English language" -- producer of stuff direly trite, hackneyed, linguistically tortured-and-awkward, and emotionally crudely over-the-top -- with the mickey mercilessly taken out of him by any of his contemporaries at the craft, who were at all better at it than him. This will be forever, what the name "Tupper" suggests to me first and foremost.

 

[swt_passenger]

I think there was a time when “Fablon” was used generally for self adhesive plastic sheets, eg for protecting books?

 

[gg1]

I've heard someone refer to a game console as an XBox even though it was a PlayStation!!

In terms of tablets, I've never heard iPad being used for anything other than iPads.

Exact opposite for me, I've heard of non Apple tablets being referred to as iPads a few times but have never heard anyone use either Xbox or PlayStation to refer to other consoles.

 

[Geezertronic]

If people want to search for something on the Internet, the majority of people will "Google" it

 

[edwin_m]

A relative used to work for Formica, and I think they had an entire department trying to stop people using it as a generic term for laminate surfacing.

I recall some consternation on Blue Peter back in the 70s, when someone breached the BBC non-advertising policy by saying Sellotape instead of sticky tape.

 

[XAM2175]

I used to think breathalyser was a particular make of breath tester but I believe that it is actually a generic term.

Nope, you were right the first time.

We're perhaps lucky that way, because if we'd genericised the trademark for the earlier generation of testing kit we'd be stuck with "drunkometer".

 

[adc82140]

"It's not on ordinary TV, it's on Sky" when referring to a TV programme that's not shown on channels 1-5, no matter who actually owns the channel.

Heard less in the digital era.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

Cherry Picker - Mobile Elevated Work Platform
Portaloo - Portable Chemical Toilet Cabinet

 

[Mcr Warrior]

'Portacabin', sometimes used generically for any prefabricated modular office building.

 

[Ediswan]

'Portacabin', sometimes used generically for any prefabricated modular office building.

The trademark is Portakabin.

 

[D6130]

"JCB" for any make of mechanical digger.

 

[AlterEgo]

If people want to search for something on the Internet, the majority of people will "Google" it

But that’s because they’re using Google. That’s not a generic term. Browsing the forum here isn’t “googling”.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

'Portacabin', sometimes used generically for any prefabricated modular office building.

The trademark is Portakabin.

I'm obliged, sir!

'Portacabin' is, however, more often the variant spelling that is used generically.

 

[JKF]

‘Portacabin’, sometimes used generically for any prefabricated modular office building.

I can remember one time that Private Eye (or possibly Viz) published a letter from someone from the firm admonishing them for using Portakabin as a generic term rather than ‘modular building’, and the magazine ruthlessly taking the p*ss that this was someone’s job to write these letters.

 

[Springs Branch]

Sellotape for any kind of clear, polypropylene-based tape with a pressure sensitive adhesive. Not just specific varieties now manufactured by Henkel AG & Co.

In the USA, it's generally known as Scotch® Tape, whether or not it's made by 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company).

While in Australia, the familiar sticky tape found in every office stationery cupboard used to be known as Durex . . . . . but that's another story.

 

[DelW]

Cherry Picker - Mobile Elevated Work Platform

But "cherry picker" was (afaik) never a brand name or a trade mark, as specified by the OP.

In my work place the generic term became the acronym MEWP, pronounced as if it was a word, i.e. "mupe".

In a previous era of construction plant, when I worked on site, articulated dump trucks were all called Volvos, regardless of who they were actually built by. By a generation later, they were similarly all called Moxys. Probably something different again by now.

 

[AY1975]

Sellotape for any kind of clear, polypropylene-based tape with a pressure sensitive adhesive. Not just specific varieties now manufactured by Henkel AG & Co.

In the USA, it's generally known as Scotch® Tape, whether or not it's made by 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company).

Likewise, I believe that it's usually called "le Scotch" in French and "das Tesa" in German (which again I presume is a particular brand of sticky tape).

 

[Mag_seven]

"HP Sauce" being used to describe any old brown sauce.