[dragonwriter]

> Oh, another fun fact, those little stickers on bananas? They were one of the first examples of 'branding'

Not even close. Craftsman's marks -- the original trademarks -- are pretty much the original form of branding, and predate banana stickers by by probably on the order of a couple thousand years.

[jacquesm]

Brand relates to an old Northern European word still in use today. Brand in Dutch and German means fire, the marks were burned into cattle, products and anything else that needed a hard to remove label.

[dragonwriter]

That's all true, but somewhat beside the point. Yes, that's the etymology, but most of those aren't examples of the meaning being discussed, but are instead owner's marks, rather than origin marks.

[pyre]

Yup. More related info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand#History