Is GENERICIDE a bad choice or morphemes?

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:59 PM -0600 3/4/05, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>Forgive a rank amateur for weighing in so,

We're all equal-rank amateurs here as English wielders, assuming
trademark lawyers don't get to tip the scales.

>  but:
>
>Even after hearing the arguments against "genericide" and for
>"antonomasia", it's hard for me to consider the former "doomed",
>especially when compared with the latter.  When I heard the word
>"genericide" in this context (and I had never heard it before, ever), it
>had a sense of "rightness" in application that "antonomasia" doesn't
>come close to getting.  The fact that "genericide" sticks in the memory
>much better than "antonomasia" (see, for example, Ron Butters'
>difficulty in recalling it) makes it a more useful term, while the
>opaqueness of "antonomasia" is a strike against it.

Well, I'll certain remember "genericide"; the tricky thing is
figuring out what it means, but I concede I'll remember that now too.
And I'm quite willing to acknowledge it does have a head start,
containing the appropriate morphemes as it does.  I just wish they
fit together better.

>
>And it is being used, to fulfill the need for a word with the meaning
>that "genericide" has under this discussion.  The Hein Online legal
>database has 71 cites for "genericide", and only 5 for "antonomasia" --
>and all of the "antonomasia" cites are in its context as a figure of
>classical rhetoric, none in the Kleenex/Xerox/Fridgidaire sense.

That may well be true for legal databases, but I note that googling
"kleenex antonomasia" does pull up 68 hits.  Granted, "kleenex
genericide" gets you 141, but that is a closer vote than the Hein
count.   I never claimed "antonomasia" would win the lawyers' hearts
(and that's assuming...no, I won't go there).

>
>English is full of quirks.  We may be watching one develop, with
>"genericide".

Could be.  I will go down arguing, but this may end up like the
domination of the superior Apple technology by the more efficient and
better bankrolled forces of evil.

Larry