I mean things for which the company name has "become" the name of the product no matter who makes it. Kleenex now means tissue no matter who makes the tissue. When you ask for a kleenex, you don't care if it's made by Puffs, it's pretty universally called a kleenex. I even heard it called a Puffs kleenex once.
If one owns a Caddy, that is often how it's referred to because a Cadillac is considered special, but it's a car. Someone with a Honda wouldn't call their car a Caddy but probably would just refer to it as their car.
Any brand of whipped topping is commonly called Cool Whip and a Xerox came to mean a copy of something no matter the maker of the machine used to make the copy. See what I mean???
This came up on another forum in which a British chick said she was hoovering the carpets. Good chance her vacuum isn't even a Hoover. Could be a Kirby or Oreck. But, you wouldn't hear someone say they were Kirbying the carpets.
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