Post #1335527
2025-02-13 10:45 UTC
Replies (29)
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@Seetee@mastodon.cloud 2025-02-13 11:10
@DrPen Great advice! But are there no better word than "text document"? That is sort of already taken by plain text. A name for documents between text and DTP. Nothing else comes to my mind, though...
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@tydalforce@mastodon.world 2025-02-13 11:34
@DrPen Combine your words with actions - use (and promote) alternatives like LibreOffice, Gimp, DuckDuckGo, etc.
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@jackyan@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 13:02
@DrPen Interesting. Of these, I only used Photoshop. So I seldom used those other terms. I stuck with WordPerfect and Quattro Pro, neither of which became generic.
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@DavidBHimself@firefish.city 2025-02-13 13:08
@DrPen@mastodon.social That's the way language works, and this is not specific with computers. Have you ever said fridge, videotape, laudromat, hoover, linoleum, xerox, aspirin, cellophane, escalator, kerosene, thermos, and many more? This is the way languages work.
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@lemonblueberry@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 13:16
@DrPen i am a cog in the kleenex industrial complex
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@yuhasz01@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 13:31
@DrPen I would take this language battle a bit further: do not say GOP/POTUS administration, say "Regime" do not refer to DEI and immigration deportation as policies, but "ethnic cleansing" do not say GOP, say AFFP(ie America's First Fascist Party) do not say POTUS, say Felon President Trump and many others
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@kaito02@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 14:02
@DrPen Don't say Teflon, say polytetrafluoroethylene /hj but I kinda wanna annoy people with this
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@RaySF@glasgow.social 2025-02-13 14:12
@DrPen Download LibreOffice. Its free and French.
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@Bodling@deacon.social 2025-02-13 14:24
@DrPen Hang on a second while I google those hashtags .....
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@chrysn@chaos.social 2025-02-13 14:38
@DrPen Or misuse them deliberately to eventually make the trademark generic, as happened with bubble wrap and thermos bottles. But know what you're doing. (Then again, none of those listed are pretty enough to use as generic terms…).
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@bogdanoviste@eldritch.cafe 2025-02-13 14:45
@DrPen we should do the same with online services. An Emacs contributor and philosopher I appreciate a lot, Protesilaos Stavrou, always say "the video-hosting platform" instead of YouTube in his videos, even if they are hosted there (for now).
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@duckworld0714@mas.to 2025-02-13 14:54
@DrPen Or: Don't say ChatGPT, say AI.
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@DeyCi_DustRain@radikal.social 2025-02-13 14:58
@DrPen Great point I will try to see if I can erase “googling (vb)”. It is pretty integrated in my personal language. I forgot I can do something about it.
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@honzajavorek@mastodonczech.cz 2025-02-13 15:07
@DrPen Until it reverses and their brand becomes just a word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
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@KayOhtie@blimps.xyz 2025-02-13 15:12
@DrPen I love how Adobe has their entire page on "don't turn it into a verb" to maintain their trademark but they still absolutely want it synonymous to some extent for monopolistic purposes. As much as I love "potatochop" as the goofy term for editing maybe it's time for me to alter that.
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@jailandrade@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 15:24
@DrPen not the same but, don’t say America say United States of America or USA… if we want to broke the branding machine we should go to the top
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@nlupo@amikejo.xyz 2025-02-13 15:37
@DrPen Don't say "Google it" because Google is not the only search engine. I find that very annoying.
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@wimvdputte@social.vivaldi.net 2025-02-13 15:37
@DrPen - Don't say Google Search, say spy
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@librarianbe@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 15:43
@DrPen Don’t say Aspirin, say acetylsalicylic acid. 😅
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@LynMhairi@mastodon.scot 2025-02-13 15:49
@DrPen I am busy looking to replace Google and wean myself off saying google rather than search ,,,though to be fair in the Uk we call vacuum cleaners Hoovers but it’s not done that company much good
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@iju@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 15:51
@DrPen Personally I feel the more trademarks we can destroy by using the names generically, the better. So I'll absolutely google how xeroxing or velcro works.
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@Moosader@mastodon.gamedev.place 2025-02-13 15:54
@DrPen Since I teach coding, I do have to make a note in the differences between a plaintext editor and a document editor, to me a "text document" is going to be plaintext, but that's just specific to my area as a programmer.
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@glyph@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 16:04
@DrPen @astraluma counterpoint: normalizing the genericification of all these terms destroys the trademark value of big tech, literally liberating billions of dollars of equity from oligarchs. Personally I make all my powerpoints in Keynote or Reveal.JS
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@capnthommo@c.im 2025-02-13 16:10
@DrPen was a time when companies spent actual money to stop people using their proprietary names as generics. When people said Hoover for example instead of vacuum cleaners, and Thermos rather than vacuum flask.
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@grayson@thepage.house 2025-02-13 16:24
@DrPen and if you can't avoid it (which, I'd agree, we should try), then maybe go so "hard in the paint" that society collectively turns the corner and causes the Kerosine/Dry Ice problem and they lose the trademark.
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@annehargreaves@ioc.exchange 2025-02-13 16:26
@DrPen Don't say "Google" say - well, anything else really.
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@erwinrossen@mas.to 2025-02-13 16:29
@DrPen I think it's more powerful to go for the opposite and complete the #genericide, just like it happened to Kleenex, Xerox or Band-Aid. Say to everyone you will send them a Word document, and then send them a random other text document. Say you'll app somebody, then don't use WhatsApp but Signal, etc. These terms are so generic now, I think we're almost there already.
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@ManniCalavera@openbiblio.social 2025-02-13 16:40
@DrPen I'd like to extend this good advice to Very Special Brand Orthography like "IPad". I will always write Ipad since I am not a brand ambassador.
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@semii@mastodon.social 2025-02-13 16:41
@DrPen don't google say web search