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Comment by jacob019 | Hacker News Reader

What are cotton buds?

AKA cotton swabs or "Q-tips". (Except the brand-name product is made with a rolled paper stem, not the plastic type that's under threat.)

I've been using disposable paper-stem cotton buds for a while, for the simple reason that they are flushable (or so it says on the box; some people disagree). Glad to see plastic ones on their way out given the superior alternatives.

They're definitely not flushable in the UK. Please don't flush them if you're in England.

Sewage systems are not garbage disposal. They're an important public health system to remove faecally contaminated waste away for treatment.

There are tests for "flushable", and paper stemmed cotton buds don't pass those tests.

https://www.water.org.uk/policy/environment/waste-and-wastew...

Here's a PDF of a protocol. https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web...

Thanks for the info! That's all interesting. I'm not in the UK, no; I recall similar warnings there when I was.

Q-tips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_swab

Sigh. Its quite depressing to see Americans rely on brand names rather than the original meaning of the word.

It would almost make you want to take an Advil.

Was your entire post just a very cheap excuse to bash Americans?

Why would it be "quite depressing" if Americans call them Q-tips or "cotton buds" or any number of a dozen other things.

I'd say the entire post was probably an attempt at a joke, given the use of brand-name Advil.

It's mostly regional variation rather than brand names. American English almost always uses "cotton swab" as the generic term while British English today uses "cotton bud" more often. Overall "cotton swab" appears to be the most common English term.

Given that "cotton bud" appears to be a relatively recent British quirk (gaining popularity in the last couple decades), I would submit that "cotton swab" is the original and proper generic term.

British English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cotton+swab%2C...

American English: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cotton+swab%2C...

English overall: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cotton+swab%2C...

(Refresh the page if the graph doesn't load at first.)

I was referring to the use of the brand name 'Q Tip'.

If the OA had said "cotton swabs" we would have known what it meant. Don't be a dick.

Q-tips

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