Indomie

Hello People!
How was your Monday? It was fine, right? Mine wasn't bad, I was had chance to grind a little bit online.

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While listening to radio program today, they pointed at somethings that's awkward and very common to us(Nigerians) which I know it's possibly common in your country too.

They pointed at the way we use one common product's name to generalize the whole products. Are you getting me?

Let me break it down a little bit and see if you can guess before I drop an example;
Let's say a common good or service of a company had greeter influence or was first produced, the name of that company would be used to call the subsequent brands from other companies. I'm sure you got it now...and you've figured out a similar product already in your country.

Let me list some examples as it's seen in my country.

INDOMIE

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Indomie is a brand of noodl,es but because indomie came out first or dominated the noodles business, we've now generalized all noodles to be "indomie".
It's just a few percent of Nigeria would go to a shop and say "I want to buy noodles", the popular and common approach we all know is "I want to buy indomie", which is very funny😂.
Meanwhile, we have different good and well selling brands but indomie has been used to generalize all of them.

Another funny thing is that, most of the sellers of these products don't even know how to differentiate, they give out anyone that comes to their hand🤗.
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MAGGI
Maggi is a well known brand of seasoning cubes. Due to how popular it is, it has stolen the general name for seasoning cubes.

Again, it's just a few number of people that go out and say "I want to buy seasoning cube", we are all used to "I want to buy Maggi" then the trader will ask which brand...as if "Maggi" has many types😂.

This one is supposed to be easy to be called seasoning cubes because "Maggi" doesn't cover a lot as compared to how indomie does, but we are still adamant to Maggi lol😂

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KLIN Or OMO
KLIN or OMO are brand's name for detergent but they've also stolen the general name.

There are several detergents in the Nigerian market but I tell you this, large chunk of Nigerians called all detergents "omo or Klin", especially in the rural area. If you tell them you want to buy "detergent, they'll tell you they do not have. But tell them you want to buy "Omo or Klin" and they would respond. Even if they actually don't have the omo detergent, they would bring other products saying that they are "omo" too.

Although the usage of the name, "Klin" has reduced recently but a good number of Nigerians are still saying they want to buy klin instead of saying they want to buy detergent.

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GALA

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GALA is oftently used to refer to sausage rolls.

GALA is just a brand name for sausage rolls but the name has dominated and covered up the real thing.
This particular one will stay with us forever till the world ends. Even till today, there's no sign of repentance from us calling sausage roll as gala.
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NEPA
NEPA is the acronym for National Electric Power Authority which I think was the first power management in Nigeria.

The NEPA handed over to another authority long years ago but we still prefer to call the  current power authority as NEPA.
It's really funny how we still beckon on this name,,, even the professors in the country still go with this.

"Up Nepa!"
That's the common shout for joy whenever light is restored. Everyone does that😂
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I know this is common to all countries and you know the ones said in your country, do well to share with us on the comment section.

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Thanks for reading

7th November 2022