From Wiki:
In Britain Hoover has become so associated with vacuum cleaners as to become a genericized trademark. The word “hoover” (without initial capitalization) often is used as a generic term for “vacuum cleaner”. Hoover is often used as a verb, as well, as in “I’ve just hoovered the carpet”.
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised with this one. In Canada we use plenty of genericized trademarks like: Kleenex, Q-tips and BandAids, but it still surprised me. I bought a used vacuum cleaner today from some guy online and he used the term hoover which totally confused me. If anything, to me, Hoover is either a name of a dam or something I associate with defensive eaters like my friend Cernik enjoying a big tray of poutine.
