The meaning of GENERIC (was FRIGIDAIRE and KLEENEX)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 3/1/05 5:01:47 PM, MAdams1448 at AOL.COM writes:


> The primacy of what consumers KNOW is also technical and legal, too, isn't 
> it, Ron?  That is, it's one thing that matters to the courts in determining 
> whether trademark terms have become generic, yes?
> 

Well, I would say that the primacy of what SPEAKERS know is what linguistics 
is all about. In lexicography, one describes the meanings that one 
concludes--inductively, on the basis of the data of actual use (but also with some use of 
introspection and the work of previous lexicographers)--that are in the minds 
of speakers of the language.

In linguistics, the usual definition of GENERIC is not relevant to the issue 
of trademarks, since GENERIC (as linguists susually use the term) may be 
applied to ANY word (e.g., "The giraffe has a long neck" is ambiguous between a 
generic and a nongeneric reading).

The lexicographical definition of GENERIC (in the sense relevant to this 
discussion) is essentially borrowed from the law. Legally, a term is not GENERIC 
if it is a trademark. KLEENEX and JELLO and BAND-AID are legal trademarks; 
therefore, they are not "the generic term." They may be USED in a SHORTHAND way 
(Jenny and I called this SYNECHDOCHE in our article that Michael mentions) as if 
they were generics, but that does not make them generics unless people really 
believe that they are no longer trademarks. It truly happened with, say, 
ZIPPER and ASPIRIN, but not with KLEENEX, that people came to so believe.

Perhaps there is some taxonomic profit in (re)defining GENERIC in 
linguistics/lexicography to include the shorthand sense as well as the legal sense, but I 
can't see any profit in essentially blurring a distinction that is culturally 
quite important (i.e., in the law) and that delineates a real difference in 
linguistic knowledge and behavior (i.e., people recognize MICROSOFT and KLEENEX 
as one kind of word, ZIPPER as the other). Perhaps it could be useful to 
create a category that contains KLEENEX and ZIPPER but excludes MICROSOFT, but it 
seems to me that the burden of argument is on those who would find such a 
category necessary--and they need also to explain why such a category is 
culturally and/or linguistically useful, and why they want to appropriate a term that 
already has a closely related meaning.

I don't think I "disagree" with Larry and Michael--it is really just a 
question of what labels to assign to what concepts. Of course, it would be perfectly 
legitimate to say that there is no little empirical evidence to indicate 
that, in folk speech, many people use the term GENERIC in what I am arguing here 
is a less-useful way (and which Michael and Larry seem to favor). As linguists 
and lexicographers, we ought certainly to record that "fact" as well. I 
suggest, however, that most people who use "generic" in the Michael-Larry way have 
in fact been from the outset strongly influenced by the legal sense of the 
term--that is, they are in realilty attempting to use it in a quasi-legal fashion 
without understanding the sociolegal implications of their usage. And this 
leads to all sorts of confusion.