Brand Name or Generic? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kleenex

We have gotten into the habit of referring to all tissue as "Kleenex". However, Kleenex is a registered trademark and brand name for only the tissue paper produced by Kimberly-Clark Worldwide, Inc. Kimberly-Clark created the first Western version of tissue paper in 1924, mainly for the purpose of removing makeup remover from the face. Tissue had long been in use in Japan for centuries before Kimberly-Clark began marketing it.

Answer: Coke

Perhaps you have heard someone plan a party and say he or she needs to buy some coke. This person then stocks his or her home with all kinds of sodas, like Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew as well as Coca-Cola too. "Coke" is a shortened version of "Coca-Cola" but the word "Coke" is still a registered trademark and brand name of the Coca-Cola Company and legally can be used only to refer to the cola made by that company.

Coke was invented in the late 1800's by Colonel John Pemberton, who was seeking an alternative for his morphine addiction and who marketed it originally as a medicine to help people with drug addiction, headaches, and indigestion.

Answer: Q-tip

Many people refer to cotton swabs--thin sticks with a miniature ball of cotton at one or both ends--as Q-tips. This is inaccurate as "Q-tip" is a registered trademark and brand name belonging to Unilever.

The cotton swab, older itself than the Q-tip name, was invented by Leo Gerstenzang, who at some point in the 1920's attached a small wad of cotton to each end of a toothpick. He originally called his swabs "Baby Gays" but later changed the name to "Q-tip", the "Q" standing for "Quality". Many people insist on using swabs to clean their ear canals, but medical research has determined that there is no benefit to cleaning the ear canal with a swab while the risk of damaging it is great.

Answer: Xerox

Many people use the words "Xerox machine" to refer to any photocopier and will use "Xerox" as a verb to refer to the action of photocopying (such as "I need to Xerox twenty copies of that document").

However, "Xerox" is a registered trademark and brand name belonging to the Xerox Company, which was founded in 1906 in Rochester, New York, and was originally named The Haloid Photographic Company. Xerox created the Xerox 914, the first plain paper photocopier, in 1959. This machine relied on the process of electro-photography, a process whose name was later changed to xerography.

Answer: Band-Aid

The Band-Aid brand name is owned by Johnson and Johnson, but it is such a popular term that it has become interchangeable in America for the word "bandage" itself. The Band-Aid was invented in 1920 by Earle Dickson, who was trying to create a bandage that his wife could apply by herself to her fingers when she burned them while cooking.

Answer: Scotch tape

Scotch Tape is a brand name owned by 3M and, therefore, should be used only to refer to transparent adhesive tape manufactured, packaged, and sold by this company. However, most Americans stubbornly refer to all transparent and invisible adhesive tapes as "Scotch Tape".

Richard Drew, during the 1920s, came up with the name "Scotch" for his tape product, which was actually a form of masking tape at the time. He was attempting to figure out the minimum amount of adhesive substance he needed to make a roll of tape. His finished product was rejected by an individual who referred to the makers of the tape as "Scotch", a term used in the '20s by some people to mean "stingy". The transparent tape was not invented until the 1930s with the creation of what was then called cellophane or cellulose tape.

Answer: Magic Markers

Binney & Smith, the makers of Crayola crayons, bought the right to use the brand name "Magic Marker" in 1989.

Sidney Rosenthal invented the felt-tipped writing instrument in 1952 and named it "Magic Marker"; the tool was a short glass bottle of ink containing a wool felt wick that exited the bottle at its top with a felt writing tip. While Magic Marker has become a commonplace term for the felt-tipped pen, the Sharpie brand of markers has begun to challenge Magic Marker as the common name for such pens.

Answer: ChapStick

"ChapStick" is a registered trademark and brand name owned today by Pfizer Consumer Healthcare. During the 1880s, Dr. Charles Brown Fleet invented this popular lip balm product; he marketed the product by wrapping sticks that resembled wickless candles in tin foil.

The product then passed to Morton Manufacturing, then to A. H. Robins Company, and then to American Home Products, which eventually changed its name to Wyeth. Finally, Wyeth sold the product to Pfizer.

Answer: Post-it Note

"Post-it" is a registered trademark and brand name of 3M. The product was mostly an accidental creation. In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver was trying to create a stronger adhesive when he created a "re-useable, low-tack" adhesive instead. Then in 1974, a colleague of his, Art Fry, used the stuff to keep his bookmark in place in his hymnal. Suddenly, the idea was born that this strange adhesive material could be applied to the backs of small pieces of paper and sold to consumers.

The Post-it was born! A recent major competitor of the Post-it products and rival for the use of the brand as a genericized name is the Sticky Note, which is a registered trademark and brand name of Societe Bic.

Answer: Jell-O

The brand name "Jell-O" is owned by Kraft Foods. The brand has become so much a part of American language that people don't even know how to use the phrase "gelatin dessert" anymore. For example, on one website I recently visited, an individual rejected any gelatin products that were not produced from animals on a grass farm.

This individual rejected Jell-O, but later when he or she was explaining all the food items one could make from gelatin, he or she listed "jello" as an item. In other words, this individual was saying don't use Jell-O to make jello.

While the use of gelatin as a food item extends back into the 1400s, Pearle Bixby Wait and his wife May began adding coloring and flavoring in the 1890's to create the dessert we keep calling Jell-O.