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by compiler-guy 901 days ago
"Velcro" wasn't a common word, and was not short for "hook and loop" when the company trademarked it. They coined the term.

They are desperately trying to make it _not_ the abbreviation this comment claims it to be. Quite like "kleenex" in that way.

Normal people generally shouldn't care what the company's legal team wants or thinks--this campaign certainly doesn't stop me from using the term generically--but if the company defends its trademark in this way, it can extend the time _other_ _companies_ can use it as a generic description of what it does.
2 comments
Fatnino 901 days ago
Based on nothing but my gut:

Velcro is the right word.

Xerox is acceptable but not what I reach for first.

Kleenex just sounds wrong. It's tissue and always has been.

Maybe it's a regional thing? NorCal.

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Fuzzwah 901 days ago
Of course it's a regional thing. There's many examples from around the world. For many in Britain "hoover" is synonymous with vacuum cleaners, and "tannoy' for loud speaker / public address system.
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krisoft 901 days ago
In hungary the brand name of KUKA (of orange robot arm fame) become genericized to mean any kind of trash bin. I heard it happened because they produced the first widely used garbage trucks in Hungary and they had their brand name written on the trucks (or perhaps even on the garbage cans, depending on where you read the story). So much so that the garbage trucks are called “kukás autó”, and the profession of garbage collection itself is just called “kukás”.

A long long time ago I built a robot out of a garbage can to celebrate this weird connection: https://youtu.be/LFD63moEUkw?si=qDQ54dVNIvOG8nrM

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gumby 901 days ago
> Velcro" wasn't a common word, and was not short for "hook and loop" when the company trademarked it. They coined the term.

You're arguing against a claim I didn't make. I simply said it's an abbreviation for a French phrase (the inventor was a French speaking swiss). Contractions of this sort are more common in French than straight acronyms, which tend to be more common in English. I didn't say it was some pre-existing word.

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