kodak, v.

[Laurence Horn]

I did a paper on genericide awhile back for presentation in Rochester, and I found a lot of instances of "kodaking".  The OED entry includes some from the late 19th century:

Kodak, v. Now rare.

 a.    trans. and intr. To photograph with a Kodak.

1891 Anthony's Photogr. Bull. IV. 59 A next door neighbor, who is just beginning to ‘kodak’.

1892 Ill. Sport. & Dram. News 23 July 695/2 Chloe..insisted upon kodaking us all in every conceivable position.

1924 New Republic 24 Dec. 120 Our Main Street is the happy-hunting ground of the ill-willed camera. Picture ahead, Kodak as you go.

1928 Ibid. 12 Dec. 90 The young cook who had been one of the last to leave the ship, Kodaking as he went.

1936 Time 14 Dec. 21 A French actress who recognizes Mrs. Simpson and tries to Kodak her gets a blow from the British bodyguard knocking her camera from her hand.

1954 Life 26 Apr. 155 Kodaked by friend as he himself aimed a Kodak, Eastman was photographed on a ship in 1890 by early model which took round pictures.

And Mencken wrote about the persistence (at least through 1937) of to kodak and its derivatives--kodaker, kodakry, kodak-fiend, etc.--in the face of complaints like that in the 1917 issue of the the Verband Deutscher Amateurphotographen-Vereine on the dangers of misusing kodak as a generic for easy-to-operate cameras.

The history of this verb is now being repeated by another Rochester product; when I was in grad school, we "xeroxed" our papers, but--more likely because of the rise of competition than because of Xerox's campaign (with slogans like "you can't xerox a xerox on a Xerox/but you can copy a copy on a Xerox©™ copier") my current grad students just call it "copying".  Just goes to show that death by genericide, unlike the case of other -cides, isn't always permanent.  

LH

On Jul 7, 2012, at 4:34 PM, Chris Waigl wrote:

> My partner Melinda Shore is reading "A woman who went to Alaska" by May Kellogg Sullivan, which is an account of the author's travel in the North (including the Yukon) during the gold rush of 1897-1900. The book was first published in 1902, as far as I can tell. The point that attracted Melinda's attention was the use of "kodak" (lc spelling) as a verb.
> 
> I can't see any discussion of this in the ADS-L archives. (There's an old thread on "Kodak moment".)
> 
> The book is on Project Gutenberg ( http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22409/22409-h/22409-h.htm ), so it's easy to check. There are 18 occurrences of "kodak", nearly all as a noun either modifying another noun ("took kodak views", "kodak pictures") or referring to the camera: "my kodak" a few times, but also in the plural, such as on p. 42 of the edition digitized by PG:
> 
> ---
> Pushing their way through the crowd to the gangplank came men, women and dogs, carrying grips, kodaks, tin cash boxes, musical instruments, army sacks, fur robes, and rolls of blankets.
> ---
> 
> And then there's the verb on p. 315:
> 
> ---
> Mr. H. has returned from Nome, bringing me a package of kodak films sent from Oakland, Cal., last August, and which I never expected to receive after so long a time. I was delighted to get them, and now I can kodak this whole district, above and below.
> ---
> 
> Maybe someone's interested in this titbit. This is an interestingly written account, and I'd like to know what happened to the results of all her kodaking.
> 
> 
> Chris
> 
> --
> Chris Waigl -- http://chryss.eu -- http://eggcorns.lascribe.net
> twitter: chrys -- friendfeed: chryss
> 
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