All the words we use every day have a story behind them; that’s etymology. But some words have surprisingly recent origins.
I recently learned that the word podcast comes from Apple’s world: podcast = iPod + broadcast. The term itself was coined around 2004 (and then Apple helped push it mainstream), and now it’s just… a normal word everywhere. Isn’t it crazy?
I wanted to find more of these words we assume have been around for centuries, but were actually invented not that long ago.
Trampoline, for example, started as a trademark around the late 1930s/early 1940s—basically a new, marketable name for what was also described more generically as a “rebound tumbler” device. (The name itself was inspired by the Spanish trampolín.) “Trampoline” was definitely easier to sell, and I’m glad it stuck and got into everyday language.
We could also talk about escalator (originally a trademark), heroin (a brand name in its early commercial life), or the more obvious and well-known Bluetooth; but I think you’ve got the idea.
Our vocabulary is full of things that started as brands, inventions, or marketing tricks before becoming “just words” in our language. There’s even a name for that: genericide.