Many years ago,
when I operated a photocopy machine (sounds funny, but true) at a large legal
office in Los Angeles, the Xerox technician would correct us if we dared say
the term “to Xerox a copy”, immediately reminding us that the term was to make
a Xerox copy. The reason for this
insistence was the fear of over-identification of a company with a process or
products, specifically the unique company name would become a public domain
item, as in aspirin, originally a specific product.
Today, this
concern has disappeared, especially in the software field. People, including non-computer nerds,
regularly google for information, photoshop their picture to
eliminate the red eyes, and skype with their relatives abroad, or at least
understand what these expressions mean.
Note that these verbs are not capitalized although they are registered
trademarks nor does their trademark holder seem upset by their use.
Similarly, social
media application developers love that people can icq each other, twitter
a message to an athlete or just a friend, or chat by writing a text, not
sitting and talking like it used to be.
These extreme
successes make developers of other software drool. I am sure the Ways’ new
owner would just love to have it replace the verb to gps. Can you imagine the ecstasy of Microsoft if
Windows became a synonym for panacea (like Ford’s Edsel once
signified a completely lemon of a car)? Yahoo’s stock would reach the moon if to
yahoo something meant provide a complete service. Not everybody is so lucky, alas.
So, in a world
when anybody can rent a limousine or tuxedo and even afford caviar from time to
time, the symbol of ultimate success may, rather ironically, be found a two
line entry in a dictionary. To paraphrase that Frank Sinatra song, “If you can
make it there, you can make it anywhere……”
