As an American growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, we called all die-cast metal cars “matchbox cars,” even though many (all?) of them were Hot Wheels. I never knew there were two competing brands.
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Because of this:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_(entreprise)
Up to this day many still say, on a daily basis, say, a "bic bleu" (blue ballpen) or "bic noir" (black ballpen).
And virtually everyone french speaking calls a refrigerator (fridge) a "frigo".
* Cornstarch is called maizena
* Adhesive bandages are called bandaid
* Instant noodles are called miojo
* Yogurt sold in small pots are called danone
* Chewing gum is called chiclete (from Chiclets)
* Photocopies are xerox
* Bouillion is knorr
* Glass plates are pyrex
* Scooters are lambretta
* Soluble cofee is nescafe
* Sunglasses are rayban
And same goes for teflon, jacuzzi, velcro, tupperware, vaseline, botox, googling, ...etc, etc
Then again, we've been calling a certain class of shoes "Adidas" since 1990s, so I shouldn't be surprised by the phenomenon. Not to mention, I don't think anyone in Poland ever used the generic term for a photocopier - we all call it "ksero" machines (from Xerox).
When I was a kid in Brazil everyone called all scooters Lambrettas, even though none of them were Lambrettas. They usually were... Vespas.
Now that I know it is actually rivalling companies, I wonder how sad Lambretta and Vespa companies are, with eveyrone calling their Vespa a Lambretta.
In Brazil is the name and brand of adhesive tape. In Portugal is the name and brand of condoms.
Equally, a Bic is not any ball pen at all, but a specific inexpensive, usually faceted kind, AFAICT.
Xerox, on the other hand, were the original inventors of the particular photocopy process.
Right, but that's still a quite large and generic product category, produced by many manufacturers and sold by many vendors - while "X-Acto" is a specific US brand of a specific US company.
> Equally, a Bic is not any ball pen at all, but a specific inexpensive, usually faceted kind, AFAICT.
Yeah, here we didn't call random ballpoint pens "Bic" - the name was used to refer to only to the specific brand of cheap and shitty orange pens that were easy to find anywhere and which no one wanted to use.
> Xerox, on the other hand, were the original inventors of the particular photocopy process.
Here it's long been a verb. You don't copy documents, you xero documents.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-funniest-differences-amon...
Rubber. Brit: pencil eraser. American: condom.
Durex. Brit: condom. Australian: sticky tape.