Discussion Main / StuckOnBandAidBrand

The first sentence in the lede—"In normal conversation, people talking about a product don't specify the brand unless they need to"—is not always true. In fact, when we're talking about TV shows and movies, rather than commercials, the rule seems to be inverted: brand names are unnaturally avoided. So people ask for a "tissue" instead of "Kleenex," "cola" instead of "Coke" or "Pepsi," and "fast food" instead of a particular restaurant chain.

Being in Afghanistan

arromdee: deleted

• Actually the term PC pre-dates IBM trademarking it and was first popularly used in the late 70's. Certainly in the early 80's if you were lucky enough to have a PC it was more likely to be an Apple II, Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum or something from Tandy, Radio Shack or Texas Instruments. And if you worked in an office, you probably had a Wang.

Are you sure about that? The way I remember it, the term usually used was "home computer", not "PC", though I don't know about offices. I'm sure the term existed, but was it widely used?