i202 Fall 2009 School of Information, UC Berkeley

A thread on a discussion forum today was about tin foil. Tons of people say tin foil, yet it hasn't been made of tin since the middle of the 20th Century. But for some reason that made me think of "Saran Wrap" and how that's a more common term than "plastic wrap" even though it is a name brand. Trademark genericization is a common kind of metonymy, where a single brand name comes to be the authoritative term for describing products like it, but I'm pretty sure more people use the term "Band Aid" than "metonymy." I found this database of proprietary eponyms: American Proprietary Eponyms by Randall E. Krause. It includes a bunch but I don't think it's complete (e.g., Hula-Hoop is missing). Maybe we can help him finish it.