{"id":65,"date":"2004-10-19T23:26:28","date_gmt":"2004-10-19T23:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/applecrumble.wordpress.com\/2004\/10\/19\/genericise\/"},"modified":"2020-08-08T14:59:33","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T14:59:33","slug":"genericise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2004\/10\/19\/genericise\/","title":{"rendered":"Genericise"},"content":{"rendered":"
…or, as I would define it, ‘to make more generic; to turn from a specific into a generic case’. I knew that this wonderful word that I have been dropping into emails and documents at work for many years doesn’t exist in the standard Microsoft dictionary. Recently, after it had been highlighted for the umpteenth<\/a> time in Outlook, I finally looked it up. To my horror, I found that it doesn’t exist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Except that it does. Some wonderful individuals have come to my rescue with a dictionary to which we can all submit words – the wonderful Pseudodictionary<\/a>. I’m not sure who Phil T<\/a> is, but he’s a man after my own heart.<\/div>\n

…or, as I would define it, ‘to make more generic; to turn from a specific into a generic case’. I knew that this wonderful word that I have been dropping into emails and documents at work for many years doesn’t exist in the standard Microsoft dictionary. Recently, after it had been highlighted for the umpteenth […]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-65","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-web","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":186,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2006\/01\/09\/online-etymology-dictionary\/","url_meta":{"origin":65,"position":0},"title":"Online Etymology dictionary","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"9 January 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Did you know that the phrase fed up probably comes from the English phrase fed up to the back teeth? Or that the first time someone recorded the use of the phrase \"Cheers!\" when having a drink was in Britain in 1919? Now you do!","rel":"","context":"In "Web"","block_context":{"text":"Web","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/web\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10086,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/05\/08\/weeknotes-219-word-wrestling\/","url_meta":{"origin":65,"position":1},"title":"Weeknotes #219 \u2014 Word wrestling","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"8 May 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A four-day week of two distinct halves. Work felt quiet with so many people in the team out of the office. I love it when there are big chunks of empty space in the diary that I can use to get things done. On Wednesday afternoon I joined the London\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/69B94FF5-55BF-40FB-9BB4-D3F483843A8A_1_102_a.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/69B94FF5-55BF-40FB-9BB4-D3F483843A8A_1_102_a.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/69B94FF5-55BF-40FB-9BB4-D3F483843A8A_1_102_a.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/69B94FF5-55BF-40FB-9BB4-D3F483843A8A_1_102_a.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/69B94FF5-55BF-40FB-9BB4-D3F483843A8A_1_102_a.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/69B94FF5-55BF-40FB-9BB4-D3F483843A8A_1_102_a.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6834,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2021\/02\/07\/the-loveliest-place-on-the-internet\/","url_meta":{"origin":65,"position":2},"title":"The loveliest place on the Internet","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"7 February 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A close friend of mine recently asked, out of the blue: In a word, the answer is yes. For the past few years I\u2019ve been using micro.blog, which I\u2019ve come to think of as the loveliest place on the Internet. It isn\u2019t lovely by chance, it has been deliberately designed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social"","block_context":{"text":"Social","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/social\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/995CBF3F-2E64-453B-A804-231AE7E957B3_1_201_a.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/995CBF3F-2E64-453B-A804-231AE7E957B3_1_201_a.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/995CBF3F-2E64-453B-A804-231AE7E957B3_1_201_a.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/995CBF3F-2E64-453B-A804-231AE7E957B3_1_201_a.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":200,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2006\/04\/08\/is-there-a-word-for-using-a-metaphor-about-the-thing-itself\/","url_meta":{"origin":65,"position":3},"title":"Is there a word for using a metaphor about the thing itself?","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"8 April 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, is there? On a business trip this week I caught an episode of The Office on TV and it reminded me of something Ricky Gervais said in his Animals stand-up show. He was reading from Genesis in the Bible and was commenting on how amazing some of the things\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Etymology"","block_context":{"text":"Etymology","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/etymology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13785,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2026\/06\/10\/weeknotes-380-85\/","url_meta":{"origin":65,"position":4},"title":"Weeknotes #380 \u2014 85%","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"10 June 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend\u2019s sore throat and feeling parched after a very warm cycle ride turned into something else on Monday. It started as a head cold and then later in the week worked its way down into my chest. I didn\u2019t have any kind of fever; it felt as though I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weeknotes"","block_context":{"text":"Weeknotes","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/weeknotes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13829,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2026\/06\/14\/13829\/","url_meta":{"origin":65,"position":5},"title":"Just randomly recalled that as\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"14 June 2026","format":"status","excerpt":"Just randomly recalled that as a kid, we used to say \u2018fainites\u2019 when asking for mercy or a time out. I thought it was a weird word made up amongst some friends. It turns out that it was a real word used throughout southern England.","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6232,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/6232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}