Yep, so this serve the companies interest because they're trying to defend their trademark; even if they failed. I doubt Humvee is in danger of becoming a generic term (Jeep is more likely; I cannot tell you much my it annoyed me my ex called her Suzuki 4x4 a "Jeep" .. it's not a Jeep! It's a 4x4 or off-roader.." but if they enter into other trademark battles, the opposing council can't say "Well they haven't tried to defend their trademark before now..."
Interesting you bring up a point about Jeep. Never once in the US I've heard of a non-Jeep-made SUV referred to as a "Jeep". But back when I lived in Russia, every single SUV was referred to as a "Jeep". I don't even know of another word for SUV in Russian. Not trying to argue against you btw, I just personally find stuff like this interesting.
EDIT: just checked the wikipedia page for SUV in russian, and yep, in the second paragraph it says that SUVs are usually referred to as "Jeeps" in post-Soviet countries.
That term or similar ones exist all over the world. The concept of “SUV” is weird to begin with and doesn’t easily translate. Also, the ur-SUVs with truck chassis basically don’t exist outside North America. What the rest of the world call SUVs are X5’s and XC90’s and similar (“crossover” is used for smaller ones usually, despite no technical difference)
The common and slightly derogatory term for an X5/Q7/XC90 type SUV in Swedish is “Stadsjeep” (“city jeep”).
So yes Jeep is definitely not just a brand it’s like xerox and Walkman and used sloppily to refer to anything jeepy-looking.
The legend has it that when economic restrictions were relaxed towards the end of the SU someone bartered a huge quantity of a natural resource (coal?) for a huge number Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles. So around that time they were only types of cars in SU - subpar Soviet cars and fancy American Jeeps.
This was probably ironic use, like calling your big car a tank. Like the other commenter says 'вездеход' is a related but different term - a specialized vehicle where the all-terrainness is the main purpose rather than the extra capability of a road vehicle.
Oh yeah, thanks for bringing it up, totally forgot about this one. Ironically, I've only heard of it being used when it comes to the actual Jeep-made vehicles and stuff like Rav4/Land Cruiser, so it seems to be used pretty accurately.
I would generally agree with the fact that most off-road cars themselves are not referred to as a "Jeep". But in my experience it has been quite common for people to refer to off-roading as "Jeeping", even if they do not have a Jeep.
Also, I have now read and typed the word Jeep so many times it seems like a really strange word...
i can answer that. russians are retarded (source: am russian). they see a new thing, and think anything written on the side is the name of it. Examples:
marker =flomaster. clearly flow master, name of the guys who made the first marker seen in russia.
hard drive =winchester. the model of the first hdd seen by russians.
and don't try to tell them black olives are olives. they're masleeny, translating to 'oily'. because the first green oluves russians saw were in water, and the black ones were in oil. so they're not olives.
not limited to russians. i hangul, pantyhose is 'pantysuitking'
Oh god, I completely forgot about "winchester", since it's been over a decade since I've heard someone say it. And yup, fully agree on all your points.
even with das coolz english words sneaking in, and markers becoming markers, it's half-assed, in true slav style. the new russian cool-kids did ditch 'winchester.' and replaced it with 'stiff disk'
however anything that's a usb stick, be it a modem or wifi card, is still 'flashka.' sticking a cell modem in a usb port makes it flash memory. i hear with usb-c new lingo will take over. anything usb-c will be called djest' (stiffness)
“Stiff disk”? I thought “zhestkiy disk” would translate to “hard disk” just as well, which is not that far off from the actual english name for HDD/Hard Disk Drive.
Having your name become the standard way to reference to the category of products you make is highly beneficial in terms of brand recognition. In some places every off-road may be a "jeep" and every photocopier may be a "xerox machine", but the companies still own their names and only the original holders can make "real" jeeps or xerox machines.
I was about to comment in your ex's defense that "Jeep" originated from General Purpose ("GP"), so it's only fair that it reverts to the generic, but it turns out that story is apocryphal.
Nonetheless, there does seem to be a tradition of the term "jeep" referring to military vehicles prior to it being given to the Willys/Ford WWII trucks, so it's all more than a little fuzzy, and it's understandable that outside the U.S. the word is more broadly applied.
