Is allowing your brand to “verb-up” a good thing in the long run? Or is it more like shooting heroin—a short-term high in trade for a crash later? Heroin. Hard to imagine it was once a brand name. But it was—just like Aspirin, Escalator and Xerox. It was a brand name, among many, that suffered the fate of “genericide”—the buzzword that describes what happens when a brand name becomes generic.

We “google” everyday. We “tweet” incessantly. And we might “TiVo” several times a week. Some of us old fogies even “xeroxed” and “videotaped” things once upon a time. In England people still “hoover” the floor. We like “swiffering” better than mopping. Back in the ‘80s, many of us enjoyed “rollerblading.” And we all still “zip” things up—not just jackets.