[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.