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Comment by jesterson | Hacker News Reader

Just a side note - it's peculiar how we use "googling" as a synonym of searching. The guy you've mentioned won't be using google and I hope he doesn't have google on the device to fetch all necessary data

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I don't think it is. While a lot of folks don't use google, a lot of folks do, and have for a while. It isn't like it is the first time a brand became something more: Band-aid and Kleenex are items as well as brands, for example. You might Xerox that contract, too, even though you probably aren't using a Xerox brand machine to do so. Maybe you call all soda a "coke" - and asked someone, "What flavor of coke do you want?" - with Mountain Dew being a perfectly acceptable answer. (This last example isn't as widespread).

While not completely alien here in the UK, using brand names for generic concepts is a bit of an Americanism (perhaps because of a cultural tendency to glorify private business?)

"Band-aids" are plasters (short for sticking plasters) here, and "Kleenex" are tissues (even if they're actually kleenex branded).

Having said that, to "google" something or to "photoshop" something are both in common usage here. I suspect the difference has to do with the dominance of those products in their respective categories meaning that chances are you really will be using google or photoshop when you look something up. Although I can't imagine someone here using "google" in the context above to denote a specific, clearly non-google, search tool.

I think it's cultural. We have some brand names where I believe Americans don't, for example. For example, we hoover where Americans vacuum.

Jeep is another example that got plenty of use outside America, only really falling out of use in the last while as casual use of that type of vehicle got replaced by SUVs.

A jeep (in the casual, not the brand sense) is a different thing than a SUV though? When I think of "jeep", I think of a Jeep Wrangler-type vehicle, which is a much different thing than a SUV.

Right, but people who 20 years ago for reasons other than needing the ruggedness would have driven jeeps now mostly drive SUVs.

I'm not saying that people call them SUVs now. I'm saying they buy SUVs instead if they just want a big vehicle to use on road.

A widespread example of this phenomenon in Poland is calling a particular form factor of shoes "adidas" (plural: "adidasy"), regardless of the brand or manufacturer. In fact, I can't think of another word to refer to this shoe category. Another one is "kserokopiarka" for "photocopier" (and thus "skserować" for "to photocopy"), which derives from Xerox. And I think using "jeep" (pronounced as in English) for a class of cars is also common. And, of course, we Google stuff on the Internet instead of looking it up.

But other than these, I don't recall any popular examples of brands turning into generic nouns in Polish.

To "xerox" is or was to photocopy, in the US too.

At least in my circle no one is asking to pass the 'chocolate hazelnut spread' everyone calls it Nutella, even if it is not the Ferrero brand. Not US

Does google still make search appliances?

I had thought that it was discontinued years ago, but apparently they only started phasing it out in 2016 and finally shut it down in 2019. [1]

[1] https://www.cmswire.com/information-management/google-search...

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