The V

I think I would refer to the queen as something along the lines of an obsolete parasite. Actually, maybe Lizzy wold bother her more.

VINDICATION.

They used to print that in the instructions when I was a kid. It just made me want to call them Legos twice as hard. 

That was probably the first time I became aware of the contrarian side of my personality.

That's just goofy.  Sony wasn't howling for a Walkman player, nor was Kimberley-Clark hollering about Kleenex tissues.

Ooh, is it time for this argument again?

HUGELY PATRONISING ANALOGY: When you fill a sandpit, you are filling it with 'sand'. Each element of the sand is 'a grain of sand', or a 'sand grain'. Similarly, if you were to fill a similar pit with robust plastic construction toy bricks of a certain trademarked variety, you would be filling it with 'Lego'. Each element is 'a piece of Lego' or 'a Lego brick'. You don't fill the sandpit up with 'sands', and you don't build stuff out of 'Legos'.

Whereas, if you build a log cabin, you are building it out of logs, not log. Likewise, if you build a Lego spaceship, you are building it out of Legos, not Lego. Especially if calling them Legos makes the CEO of LegoCorp (or whatever) cry.

My son loves Legos.

You're building it out of wooden logs. You're not building it out of "woods".

And I'm building a spaceship out of plastic Legos, not plastics. 

Also, I think you will find that logs come from trees, which are found in the woods. QED.

Only if you look at this

and call it 'a Lego'.

I don't know about Sony, but Kimberly-Clark put at least a little effort into protecting "Kleenex" as recently as the mid-90s. The paper my mom worked at got little reminder press release-type things every once in a while to promote the use of "tissues," "photocopy," etc. Generally they made reference to the tragic case of "Aspirin."

Aaron Veenstra web | pod | mail Wii: 1265 0398 1520 0257 PS3: asveenstra

Which I in fact do. One Lego, several Legos. 

It does occur to me, though, that referring to the building material collectively as 'Lego' (as wrong as this sounds to my ears) would still fly in the face of the YOU ARE RUINING OUR BRAND whining from the Lego Corporation, who would probably only be happy if it were described as Lego Brand Plastic Construction Material or something.

That's either  a six-er, a six piece rectangle, a red stander or a six-studded piece.

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/opinions/a_common_nomenclature_for_lego_families.php

As opposed to metal "Legos"? "Lego" is the collective noun for the substance.

that red brick up thread is clearly a big 8

No, as I understand it, just calling them 'Lego' doesn't diminish the trademark; it keeps it intact. And calling them a whining corporation after all the years of joy they've given you is just ungrateful.

Whoops yes 8 not six, accurssed multi tasking eating my concentration.

There is no use case where calling them 'Legos' would harm the trademark where 'Lego' in the same case would not. Whether I refer to plastic blocks used for building spaceships made by someone else as Lego or Legos,  I'm still creating an erroneous generic term rather than respecting a trademark. 

My actual point there is that the trademark thing and the individual/collective noun thing are separate arguments. 

And I could just as easily suggest that a corporation telling me what child-me can call his toys after the vast amounts of money my parents gave them is a bit on the ungrateful side too.

It's not just the corporation. It never occurred to me that anyone would be so wrong as to add an s until I was in my 20s. It just clangs in the ear like someone dragging a fork down a blackboard.

Was this ever established as an American/British divide? I vaguely recall that it was, but I'm not sure now.

Not having the s sounds, at best, odd to me, but I suppose, jokey internet arguments aside, I'm not that bothered by it. 

Can we at least agree that the sole purpose of Lego(s) is to build spaceships? I mean, that's obvious to one and all, right?

That much is surely a given.

It'd be more a European/American divide.  And since it's a European product, we should know the terminology!  Hell, it would be like saying Duplos or Meccanos.  Just so very, very horribly, teeth-clenchingly wrong.

Hasbros.

I used to mainly make spaceships that transformed into mecha.

A good point.  But I've always thought the added equity of having your brand become a name for the thing (there's a word for that process, do you remember what it is?) more than paid off for the additional headaches. (no pun intended.)

If you used different types of sand wouldn't you be filling it up with sands?

Wikipedia calls it "genericizing." I assume the concern is that consumer confusion becomes rampant once competitors can use your genericized brand name -- if you see Kleenex on the shelve next to Puffs-brand kleenex, Scott-brand kleenex, store-brand kleenex, etc., the dominant position of the original becomes moot.

Aaron Veenstra web | pod | mail Wii: 1265 0398 1520 0257 PS3: asveenstra

<-It just clangs in the ear like someone dragging a fork down a blackboard.->

And here we have the real reason why you all can't accept American usage ...and why we won't relent.

(also - corporations, trademark holders or no - don't get to dictate how people use the language)

You like causing me pain? Can't you restrict that to board games?

Would Lego get mad if I said my kids were Legoing?