4.0455 Trademarks and Loanwords (6/139)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Wed, 5 Sep 90 18:19:42 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0455. Wednesday, 5 Sep 1990.


(1) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 19:05:20-020 (51 lines)
From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim)
Subject: Re: 4.0448 Words for Loan Words/4.0435 Trademarks (Mr. Biro).

(2) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 14:25:06 EDT (15 lines)
From: "Grace Logan - ACO Office PAS 2031 x.2597"
Subject: OED and 'trademark'

(3) Date: Tue, 04 Sep 90 15:21 PDT (16 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0446 The Word "Moron"

(4) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 08:26:31 MDT (8 lines)
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Re: 4.0453 Trademarks and other Words

(5) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:11 EST (34 lines)
From: KROVETZ@cs.umass.EDU
Subject: Trademarks

(6) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:40 EST (15 lines)
From: John Dorenkamp <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS>
Subject: trademarks

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 19:05:20-020
From: onomata@bengus (nissan ephraim)
Subject: Re: 4.0448 Words for Loan Words/4.0435 Trademarks (Mr. Biro)

Norman Miller asked for a name for loan words that are not understood in
their country of origin. I don't know of an existing term, but, as
Miller invites us to invent one, what about

Nemo-propheta-in-patria loanwords ?

Ruth Glynn writes about Mr. Biro:

> As I was sure that Biro was a man and not a firm,
> I looked the word up in OED/2e (where else?).
> The entry reads:
>
> Biro. [f. The name of Laszlo Biro, the Hungarian
> inventor.] The proprietary name of a particular
> make of ball-point pen; also (with lower-case
> initial) applied loosely to any ball-point pen.
>
> First published occurrence was in 1947 in the Trade
> Marks Journal of 29 October. 'Biro. Writing instruments
> and parts thereof, not included in other classes.'

The date issue is interesting, also as far as the actual spreading of the
*thing* (not the *name*) started. There was controversy concerning the
use of a ball-point pen in editing Anna Frank's diary. According to
detractors of the diary (not just of the editor), such pens were not
available during the war. Yet, I am told by my mother that her uncle
imported such pens to Baghdad shortly after their invention, shortly
*before* the war. That uncle himself suddenly died in 1944, in Tel
Aviv, in circumstances I described on another occasion; earlier he had
to leave Baghdad, where he was contractor of the recreation services of
the municipality -- the Saadun Park and the theater of the officers'
club -- because competitors resorted to threats. That way, we can
pinpoint an "ad quem" date for his importing the newly invented
ball-point pens with a fair degree of certitude. Can anybody add
information about when ball-point pens spread?

As the original discussion was about people who became a brand name,
here is a related issue.

As to Anna Frank, about one year ago I read an interview with a
classmate of her, published by the Israeli newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth".
The interviewer observed that whenever that woman mentioned Anna Frank
as a classmate and friend, she would say "Anne Frank", whereas whenever
she referred to Anna Frank as the well-known diary author, she would say
"Anna Frank", the way she is best known.

Ephraim Nissan onomata@bengus.bitnet
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------29----
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 14:25:06 EDT
From: "Grace Logan - ACO Office PAS 2031 x.2597"
Subject: OED and 'trademark'

We've been away for a whole month so I don't know if anyone is still
interested or, for that matter, if someone has already answered the call
(I haven't got through all the mail yet) , but when we go over to the
NOED Centre this week, Harry and I will be glad to investigate
'trademark' and report. Are we looking for it in the etymology chiefly?

cheers,
Grace Logan
Arts Computing Office
Univ. of Waterloo

(3) --------------------------------------------------------------174---
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 90 15:21 PDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0446 The Word "Moron"

Dear Steve: Americans have hyped the language almost from the time of
the Revolution, if not before. The love of hyperbolic rhetoric is a
popular thing that has lingered on. Now with tv, you get morons using
big words too they dont even know the meaning of, let alone little
words. Hype is selling the hicks and rubes the virtues of snake oil
and bear grease. Our humorous literature is all made of hype, or
hyperbole, and it was once used for humor. Now it is simply inflated.
And you cannot get a laugh or make a sale unless it zooms right off the
scre en at them. Understatement for humor, a lost art, or never an art,
not since Thoreau or Emerson. With Whitman and Twain, it goes for the
grandiose, partly humorous, partly serious. Kessler

(4) --------------------------------------------------------------19----
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 08:26:31 MDT
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Re: 4.0453 Trademarks and other Words (7/120)

For the delectation of non-American subscribers, in the US bugger is a
noun, referring to a discrete unit of snot, as in 'a bugger' (rhymes
with sugar).

(5) --------------------------------------------------------------54----
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:11 EST
From: KROVETZ@cs.umass.EDU
Subject: Trademarks

I just checked the machine-readable version of the Longman dictionary,
and there are 81 trademarks listed as entries. Among them are:

KLEENEX HOOVER COCA-COLA (also COKE) BAND-AID BEETLE (note ambiguity)
FORMICA FRISBEE WEDGEWOOD XEROX THERMOS VASELINE TEFLON

Manufacturers fight like hell to make sure that these don't enter the
public domain. Coca-Cola is the most litigated name there is; they sued
a number of restaurants when they went in and asked for a `coke' and
were given some other brand.

Does anyone have any examples of overlap between product names and common
words? The only ones I found in the Longman list were - BEETLE, COKE,
and COLT (a gun and a horse).

On another note, does anyone have examples of ambiguity arising from
dialect differences? For example, I think the word `billion' in British
English means the same thing as `trillion' in American English. As
another example, I came across the following anecdote:

A British family moves to the United States, and the mother brings her
child to school to meet the teacher. The child asks the teacher `Do I
need to bring a rubber?'. The teacher is taken aback, and the mother
tells the child: "Dear, in America they're called `erasers'".

Cheers,
Bob
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:40 EST
From: John Dorenkamp <DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS>
Subject: trademarks

It was not that many years ago (sub specie aeternitatis) that Esso
changed its name to Exxon after a purportedly computer search for a name
with no etymology (like Kodak), a name that had no overtones and could
be used worldwide. I had at the time an Esso/Exxon credit card (this
was before oil spills) and finally learned to write the double x when
making out checks. Why is it, then, that when I travel to Europe
(admittedly not often) and the Caribbean, I never see an Exxon
station--only Esso?

John Dorenkamp