#10: Thermos - As in the Bottle

I was reading the Merriam Webster Dictionary online and found this interesting list: "Top 10 Names From Trademarks" and thought it would make a good blog series. Only the words that struck my interest made my blog.

#10: Thermos

What we now know as the thermos was invented in 1892 by British scientist Sir James Dewar, a scientist at Oxford University. A German company marketed Dewar's invention, and soon thermos became the generic term for any container with a vacuum between an inner and outer wall that helps its contents retain their initial temperature (rather than cool or warm to the ambient temperature). The American Thermos Bottle Company bought the trademark rights in the U.S., but never managed to stuff the language back into its bottle. After decades attempting to prohibit the generic use of thermos, the then-renamed American Thermos Products Company lost its trademark in court in 1962. So where did the word come from? A contest: the winning submission recalled the Greek thermē, meaning heat.

#6: Band-Aid - As in Ouch!!

I was reading the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and came across "Top 10 Words from Trademarks" and thus birthed this blog series. I'm only doing the words I find interesting.

#6: Band-aid

In the early 1920s, a woman named Josephine Dickson – who tended to injure herself in the kitchen – grew tired of trying to wrap her cuts with bulky, clumsy gauze. This inspired her husband, Earle, to invent what became a simpler, sleeker alternative: sterilized, pre-made adhesive bandages. Earle offered them to his employer, Johnson & Johnson – whose marketing triumphs included shipping free Band-aids to the Boy Scouts. Although the noun Band-aid is still protected under trademark (i.e., "Band-aid brand"), the adjective band-aid is generic. Since 1970, folks have been using such the term in such phrases as "a band-aid solution."

#3: Jungle Gym - As in Monkey Bars

I was reading Merriam-Webster Online when I found this article on the "Top 10 Words from Trademarks." This is officially a new blog series and no, I did not skip #2 by accident. I just wasn't interested in the word.

#3: Jungle Gym

In 1920, Chicago lawyer Sebastian Hinton trademarked the Junglegym (one word). He modeled his structure after one devised by his mathematician father, who had envisioned children learning about three-dimensional space by climbing to specific x, y, and z coordinates. Over the decades, the beloved structure has been updated, and the trademark status lost. However, newer designs still honor what the inventor called the "monkey instinct" of kids. The (two word) term jungle gym first appeared in 1923; the never-trademarked, closely-related term monkey bars traces to 1955.

#1: Heroin - As in the drug

I was looking at the Merriam-Webster online site and came across "Top 10 Words from Trademarks".  Fascinating. My favorite line is: "...which unfortunately caused large numbers of users to become heroin addicts."   

#1: Heroin

In 1898, the German pharmaceutical company Bayer began marketing heroin – whose name comes from the German word heroisch, meaning "powerful." The product was marketed as a cough remedy made from a supposedly non-addictive morphine derivative. It was also used as a cure for morphine addiction – which unfortunately caused large numbers of users to become heroin addicts. In part because of the growing population of "junkies" (a term that may derive from the fact that some supported their addictions by selling scrap metal), Bayer eventually ceased production and lost its trademark. In 1914, American officials began regulating opiates, including the generic, powdered version of heroin.