But that’s not a good parallel at all. You can’t compare calling Sprite “coke” like a lawless heathen to the classic linguistic phenomenon of generic trademarks / proprietary eponyms, and I’ll tell you why:
‘Jell-o’ is a brand name under which multiple flavours of gelatin (and pudding/custard) are produced. There isn’t just “Jell-o” and then special “strawberry Jell-o”; the name has never denoted just one specific flavour.
‘Popsicle’ is the same as Jello, it was never a name for just one flavour of popsicle.
‘Kleenex’ is a specific brand of tissues, but it’s not inherently that distinct from other tissues. They are all lightweight tissues used to blow your nose.
‘Scotch tape’ is used to refer to any tape that is like the original scotch tape, i.e., clear, thin, small, sticky on one side. We don’t call all tape ‘scotch tape’. Electric tape, duct tape, and packing tape are all their own things, and anybody who calls any of them ‘scotch tape’ has no regard for their fellow man and ought to be thrown into the sea.
MEANWHILE, Coca-Cola is a specific kind of soda with its own distinct flavour. When Coca-Cola makes other flavours, they’re called “vanilla Coke,” “cherry Coke,” etc. but “Coke” is still its own standalone flavour, a wholly other Thing apart from the “special” flavours the company produces.
It would make far more sense if people used ‘coke’ the way we use ‘scotch tape’; that is, to denote only those sodas that are similar in appearance and taste to Coca-Cola (Pepsi, RC, Shasta Cola, etc.). I could see all of those being lumped in under a generic term ‘coke’. I could even see it being extended to all brown sodas, even though comparing Root Beer to Coke is like comparing a badger to a zebra just because they’re both black-and-white mammals. You’re on thin fucking ice but at least there’s still some semblance of logic.
But no. You southerners, who bask in your sun and heat and chew upon your wheat stems with the indifference of an armadillo in the face of oncoming traffic, you who revel in lawlessness and chaos, you linguistic delinquents who fear neither God nor man,
you are really going to look at a list of drinks that includes such variety in taste and apperance as Sprite, Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew Code Red, Orange Fanta, and Dr. Pepper, and call it all “Coke.”
You’re going to picture, in your mind, a clear, lemon-lime fizzy drink and request “coke.” And then when asked “what kind?” you will not say “Coke Zero,” “Diet Coke,” or “Cherry Coke,” no. You will answer “Sprite,” like an animal, like a feral possum who knows the ways of right and wrong and chooses wrong just to spite its creator.
And then you have the gall to say it’s an eponym as valid as ‘Jello’. No. You tossed your logic into the dumpster fires of the underworld long ago, you cannot justify it now. You cannot tell me you don’t know your own crimes. “It’s all coke,” you say, and you taste the sin of it on your tongue, and you laugh. Know this, that you are inviting judgment upon yourself and one day you will be devoured by the sun.
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