Adorno post-class

“Countless people use words and expressions which they either have ceased to understand at all or use only… as trademarks” (70)
This quote was discussed in class and we used the example of Kleenex being the term used to describe a tissue when it is actually the brand name. Since class, I have been finding multiple examples similar to this one that we use in our everyday lives (or at least I do!) As opposed to calling lip balm by its name, I call it Chapstick. How is it that we replace our everyday vocabulary with brand names and allow it to become naturalized into society? These common products are gaining new names such as Q-Tips as cotton swabs. This all relates to semiotics and the role they play in our society.

I called my brother, and we started to discuss how in England, which is where our dad is from, people call vacuums a Hoover. The Hoover is the brand name that has become naturalized into society as the object name. We then started to talk about how with our generation, the Swifter has become the new name for mopping. I’ve even recently caught myself saying “I’m going to swifter the floor”. It is certainly interesting to watch new brands be produced and then changed into everyday vocabulary.

In class, we also were talking about where certain sayings derived from. I brought up the saying “pipe down” that my father used and found that it’s originated from sailing ship signals that were given to the crew by the sounding of the boatswain’s pipe. If an officer wanted a sailor dismissed he would have him piped down. The link between this and today’s meaning of being quiet is possibly from the fact that if there was a disturbance onboard, officers would suppress it from sending the crew below decks thereby piping them down. In my language and power class today, we were also trying to find out where the saying “rule of thumb” came from. It was interesting because most of my classmates thought that it referred to beating a wife with a switch no thicker than a thumb since that is what is says in the film “Boondock Saints” when really it is a form of measurement. It is interesting how the media wrongfully depicts sayings in language and how audiences accept it as truth.