[Brybry]

That only matters legally.

In actual language usage, in the US, many people use champagne to mean any white sparkling wine (possibly any sparkling wine).

In the southern US 'coke' can be used to mean soda. Any soda. Even Pepsi. It doesn't matter that Coca-Cola has the trademark for Coke or that a Pepsi isn't a Coke.

[1000100_1000101]

> In the southern US 'coke' can be used to mean soda. Any soda. Even Pepsi. It doesn't matter that Coca-Cola has the trademark for Coke or that a Pepsi isn't a Coke.

Not just soda. My parents moved to Texas, I visited a bit, and had people ask me if this Coke thing was true. I had no idea... we generally didn't eat out, so I didn't hear what the locals did.

When I was back for Christmas, we were at a restaurant, and I heard the waiter as the table beside ours asking about drinks, so I listened...

Customer: "Can I get a Coke?" Waiter: "What kind of Coke?" (as this point I'm thinking they want clarity on Regular, Diet, Cherry, etc...) Customer: "A lemonade".

That was just weird to me. A Coke is literally ANY drink in Texas.

[makeitdouble]

I agree people should be allowed to colloquially call it whatever they want. Nobody will be there to stop parents from call their kids' PS5 a nintendo or calling mega blocks legos.

The rules are different for official product names though. I think "sparking wine" is explicit enough for any of these drinks to not have to strip the Champagne region of its name.

[jasode]

>The rules are different for official product names though.

Your argument about "official product names" seems inconsistently applied.

In your first paragraph, Nintendo® and Lego® are registered trademarks with the government and therefore, "official product names":

>I agree people should be allowed to colloquially call it whatever they want. Nobody will be there to stop parents from call their kids' PS5 a nintendo or calling mega blocks legos.

If people can colloquially re-use "Nintendo" to label any game console from Sony/Microsoft/Sega, why is colloquially using "champagne" to describe sparkling wine that's not from France a different scenario?

EDIT to reply: >The point makeitdouble is making is that it’s fine for people to use the term generically, but products shouldn’t use the name generically.[...], but Sony can’t call their next console a “Nintendo”.

The isolated subthread with grandparents (saagarjha, Brybry) that makeitdouble and you are replying in is talking about language usage and not corporations' product branding:

- saagarjha --> "It’s mostly genericized at this point." : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38979031

- Brybry --> "That only matters legally. In actual language usage, [...]" : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38979180

Brybry is actually already agreeing with your Sony example and that comment gets downvoted? Both saagarjha and Brybry have stated correct facts about how language is used in the wild so what exactly are people downvoting? I'm truly confused.

Again, the context of the subthread is language usage and not about breaking France & EU legal rules around "Champagne".

[JimDabell]

The point makeitdouble is making is that it’s fine for people to use the term generically, but products shouldn’t use the name generically. So a parent might call a PS5 a “Nintendo”, but Sony can’t call their next console a “Nintendo”. The same applies to champagne. People can call sparkling white wine “champagne”, but companies producing sparkling white wine should be able to call their products “champagne” unless it is actually from Champagne.

[p4bl0]

> That only matters legally.

No, the location does affect the taste of the wine (soil composition, sun exposure, type of vines, local traditions in how things are done…).

[Brybry]

While that's true it won't change the language usage outside of legally bound commercial labeling.

Dictionaries aren't static and have to be updated constantly.