Merf. Thinking is Hard.i get amused everytime I see a mention of “ramen” across my dash, because that’s only ONE brand of instant noodle, which everybody is talking about anyway.
it’s like when people substitute the word “Kleenex” for tissue paper.
my dad used to be very particular about this sort of thing. when I was growing up instant noodles were “Maggi”- everybody said it. But not my dad. He’d always correct us, “INSTANT NOODLES. Don’t say Maggi unless you’re actually talking about Maggi.” (but my dad was also in the flavour industry, so he was pretty invested in making sure people were accurate about that sort of thing.)
Weird—I don’t know if I knew that there was a brand called “Ramen.”
Normally, this is a pretty big deal for the company, since if it can be demonstrated in court that their brand name is used generically, they can lose their trademark (in the US, at least). But given that ramen is, you know, Japanese for “ramen,” I don’t know if the trademark is defensible in the first place.
It may well have been the case! I distinctly remember seeing “Ramen” as a brand name, back in Malaysia. (But assuming I didn’t make it up, which I doubt, it probably went out of business or renamed itself, as has been the case with some brands.)
BUT I ought to add that trademark doesn’t work the same everywhere. Maggi and Milo are pretty generic terms for “instant noodles” and “chocolate malt drink” but they still maintain their trademark. It’s actually pretty healthy for them, I think, that their brand names are such household names they’re pretty much everyday nomenclature.
