Annoying words and phrasesMarketing bollocks, buzzword bingo, or your mum saying "fudge" when she really wants to swear like a trooper. Let's ride the hockey stick curve of this top hat product, solutioneers.
Thanks to simbosan for the idea
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 8 Apr 2010, 13:13)
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This is a well documented linguistic phenomenonwhose name escapes me, in which a specific terms becomes generalised.
Example I can think of are 'Coke' being used in parts of the US to mean any carbonated beverage.
It happens frequently in Pidgin languages which economise on vocab, and in Tok Pisin where gras (derive from English grass) came to mean grass/hair/eyebrow/beard/feather/fur. The underlying idea being that grass covers the ground, thus gras is a kind of covering.
Trademark Genericisation of words happens along similar lines eg Hoover meaning all vacuum cleaners, or Bandaid or even asprin.
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Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 5:07,
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