Generic Brand Names

As a child, jello was my favorite dessert. It sparkled, it wiggled, it was cold, and, loaded with sugar, it tasted great. But it turns out I wasn’t eating jello at all. I was eating a naturally sweetened, artificially fruit flavored, gelatin dessert treat. I wonder what, exactly, artificial fruit flavoring is. I’m sure it isn’t extracted from artificial fruit (artificial fruit tastes really terrible, never mind how I know). Anyway “Jello” is not a product: it’s a brand. Mom never bought “Jello” because it was too expensive. It didn’t matter, gelatin dessert treat was fine with me (remember the sugar). Nowadays my wife doesn’t buy “Jello” either. She also doesn’t buy naturally sweetened, artificially fruit-flavored, gelatin dessert treats (remember the sugar).

Do you think you’ve been buying kleenex all these years. Unless you’ve been buying “Kleenex,” you’ve just been purchasing two-ply (possible lotion infused) facial tissue. Have you been carefully cleansing your wounds and covering them with what you though were a “Band-Aids”? More likely, the dressings were just sterilized, breathable, single-use, adhesive pads with non-stick absorbent centers. Your trusty old hoover may, in fact be a “Hoover,” but more likely it’s just a vacuum cleaner, maybe a “Dyson” vacuum cleaner, which, I understand, really sucks (but in a good way). Over the years I know you’ve used scotch tape to wrap Christmas presents, or possibly magic tape. The transparent plastic, single-side, adhesive tape you used might well have been “Scotch Tape,” or possibly even “Magic Tape” (frosty on the roll, clear on the job).

Do your kids play with small, multi-colored, modular, interlocking building blocks? They might actually be playing with “Lego” (not “Legos,” by the way, you can look it up). Perhaps they once owned a personal portable cassette tape player, most likely a “Walkman.” Perhaps it has been replaced with a personal portable digital music player, most likely an “iPod.” If they are athletic, they may have a pair of neoprene wheeled, in-line skates, possibly “Rollerblades.” If they are really athletic and coordinated, they may even own a skateboard, possibly a skateboard (okay, not a generic brand name).

At one time or another we have all had a “Coke,” or some other caramel colored, cola bean flavored, carbonated soft drink. We’ve had “Ruffles,” corrugation sliced, deep fried potato chips; or “Twinkies,” chocolate covered, sugar cream infused, individual sized roll cakes. If we live in Hawaii (and possibly a few other places), we regularly have “Spam,” a canned, pre-cooked, pork shoulder and ham meat product. Kids everywhere, including a few of us older kids, love “Popsicles,” naturally (or unnaturally) sweetened, artificially fruit-flavored, frozen juice treats; and everybody’s just got to love “Ben & Jerry’s,” a delicious, naturally sweetened with real sugar (remember the sugar), comes in dozens of exotic flavors, made only with all natural ingredients, creamy and delicious ice cream. Okay, it’s not a generic brand name, but it should be.

And then there’s aspirin, cellophane, dry ice, email, kerosene, laundromat, thermos, videotape, yo-yo, and zipper, just a few examples of what were once brand names, now officially generic names, adopted into the lexicon of modern language. I often find myself wondering: Are there more? How many more? What was the very first brand name to go generic? Do other languages exhibit this same phenomenon? Does anyone really care about all this? Do I really care about this? Not really!