Thursday, April 24, 2008

OED anyone?

An "icononym" is a brand name that, because of the brand's overwhelming success, has come to identify its particular product and all other products like it.

Don't ever venture out of the house on any errand without something to read (or little children to entertain) lest you find yourself using a waiting room to do only that - wait. But if you should forget your book, magazine, or offspring one day - try and come up with as many icononyms as you can - it might be sorta fun if you're easily amused.

Here are just a few to get you started:

Q-tip
Kleenex
Bondo
La-Z-Boy

10 comments:

barefootkangaroo said...

Do you mean OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)?

What does OED stand for?

Joel Tom Tate said...

I was wondering that about OED, too.

windex
tylenol
hoover (in England)
legos
crocs
jellies

lisa d said...

google, coke, post-it, xerox, A1, clorox

barefootkangaroo said...

chicken nuggets

Joel Tom Tate said...

ziploc bag
pamper
onesie
nuk
nerf ball

Meghan said...

OED = Oxford English Dictionary
I think

Andrew said...

Band-Aid

john tate said...

You guys are really good at this - I'm impressed. Meghan has it right - the Oxford English Dictionary is the largest dictionary in the world containing many volumes - a lot of the bigger libraries have a copy. I read a really neat biography of this American military man who lost his mind while living in London and was sentenced to a mental institution there for the rest of his life after killing a complete stranger one day. He turned out to be an important part of the team that worked for decades in compiling the OED - he was particularly adept at finding evidence of the first time a word was used in print or publication.

lisa d said...

thermos?

sharon said...

tampax.

it's a good one and you all know it.