By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Chyron
That strip of crawling text seen on every newscast at the bottom of your TV screen has a name. It’s called a chyron, pronounced “KY ron<' and was added to the dictionary in 2017. The electronically generated caption is named for the Chyron Corp., which developed the software. It's one of those words that has become so strongly identified with a product that it is used generically, similar to how 'ell-O has become synonymous for any gelatin dessert and Kleenex for tissue. Many familiar words started out as copyrighted product names for an ad man's catchy pitch: Band-Aid was Johnson & Johnson's name for an adhesive bandage, Vaseline for Unilever's petroleum jelly. The 3M corporation owns Post-It'notes and Scotch tape. Ping-Pong is Parker Brother's name for a game of table tennis they created. Otis Elevator company created a moving staircase they called the escalator, and Westinghouse developed coin laundry shops they called laundromats. Other products that have assumed generic identities include Xerox, Velcro, Dry Ice, Fiber Glass, Bubble wrap, Trampoline, Thermos, Chapstick, Dumpster, Aspirin, Popsicles and Q-tips. The carry-over is not always universal. KFC in most areas can mean any variety of fried chicken, not just the Colonel's Kentucky Fried. In Quebec it's PFK, because the French-speaking province requires the names of all businesses to be in French -- hence PFK for Poulet Frit Kentucky. In England, you will be told to listen to the Tannoy, UK's trademarked loudspeaker system. And before word processing was popular, I used a lot of wite-out, the generic term for correction fluid. In the UK or South Africa, I would have been reaching for tippex.
