I agree with what you said below, yet I will continue to call ALL kinds of napalm-type weapon "napalm", because the word very deservedly carries a horrible connotation and the newer weapons' slightly altered formula makes them no less despicable, especially in cases where the they're actually worse (like having "added oxidisers").
Let's not forget that the article rightly pointed out that several official documents from the U.S. military itself referred to the newer napalm-alike weapons as "napalm". "If that's what you call it yourself you can't scream murder over other folks calling it that."
This reminds me of the fact that a vast variety of (much more different) chemical substances are all referred to as the drug "ecstasy". The point is that in the case of someone's legitimate and ethical business I can actually sympathize with companies' concerns over (nevertheless widespread) genericalization of their trademark. In case of the makers and users of napalm or ecstasy I have no such sympathy: Their case to me is analogous to a pedophile serial killer trying to sue a police detective for causing him mental anguish.
-- ropers
On 25 Sep 2004, at 07:28, Michael Snow wrote:
Jens Ropers wrote:
If it acts like napalm but just happens to contain ''slightly'' different chemicals, ''plus added oxidisers'', then of course it's ''totally irresponsible'' to call the substance napalm. Jayzuz, that would be like--like calling a land rover a jeep! Or calling a whirlpool a jacuzzi!! Or--gasp--calling photocopying xeroxing!!! How TOTALLY inaccurate!!!!
</irony>
Actually, from the perspective of the owners of those respective trademarks (Jeep, Jacuzzi, and Xerox) it would be totally inaccurate and irresponsible. You may not personally care about such things, but they would go to a great deal of effort to discourage people from using those terms incorrectly.
Wittingly or not, the elements of your analogy have a significant point in common, which is that these are all trademarks in danger of genericide (fortunately, a much less violent demise than those you have been arguing about). Interestingly enough, I discovered that our article on napalm states that it too is a trademark, belonging in this case to Dow Chemical. However, my initial research was unable to verify this claim. Does anybody have a source that could back this up? I rather wonder whether napalm as a trademark might already have gone generic, given how many people use it to mean any gasoline-based military incendiary device, as shown by this discussion.
Instead of flaming each other from divergent points of view, perhaps we could redirect our focus to getting facts correct in our articles.
--Michael Snow