The following used to be brands/trademarks but have been carried over to our regular vocabulary and are now considered “ordinary” words: escalator, aspirin, autoharp, band-aids, breathalyzer, cellophane, corn flakes, cube steak, ditto, dry ice, dumpster, formica, Frisbee, granola, gunk, jeep, kerosene, Coke, Kleenex, mace, nylon, ping-pong (also an onomatopoeia), popsicle, Q-tip, rollerblade, rolodex, Scotch tape, sheetrock, spandex, styrofoam, tabloid, thermos, trampoline, yo-yo, xerox, and zipper.

How about that? I wonder if they get royalties for every dictionary that publishes these brands as the general term for that kind of item - including the competitors’.

And no, I wasn’t paid to this entry.:P I wish, though. LOL

In “Gulliver’s Travels” (1726), Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more than one hundred years before either moon was discovered.

Wow. All I can say is, Wow. I have no idea how Jonathan Swift was able to come up with this. It was at least one of the following:

1. He had divine inspiration;

2. His hidden talent lay in the field of astronomy; or

3. He’s one lucky guesser (imagine his test results if this was the case!)