No one person is credited with having invented Kleenex. It developed during World War Two out of a shortage of cotton for dressings and bandages. A kind of cellulose cotton seems to have caught the name Kleenex — no attribution but lots of application. After the war the surplus was sold as a wipe for cold cream but women complained that their men were using it for nose-blowing. Then someone devised a pop-up box and Kleenex became ubiquitous, if not generic. I can’t remember when it became a household necessity to me, a little too late for my crusty young nose.

Other products have become generic. Thermos comes to mind, also known as a vacuum bottle (I think there’s a TM attached). I can think of a few used by the Brits: Hoover as a verb for vacuum clean but used slangily for devouring food; corn flakes (lower case) for any cereal. But people have become generic, too, like quisling.

quisling, noun, a traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country. [ as modifier ] : he had the Quisling owner of the factory arrested. ORIGIN Second World War: from the name of Major Vidkun Quisling (1887–1945), the Norwegian army officer and diplomat who ruled Norway on behalf of the German occupying forces (1940–45).

Perhaps a new one is in the making now, to supersede the old meaning.

trump verb, by wearing the simplest of dresses and no jewellery, she had trumped them all: outshine, outclass, upstage, put in the shade, eclipse, surpass, outdo, outperform; beat, do/be better than, better, top, cap; informal be a cut above, be head and shoulders above, leave standing, walk away from; Brit. informal knock spots off; archaic outrival, outvie. PHRASES trump something up since her arrest, they've trumped up charges. (Thesaurus, online)

Now I need recharging. I't’s three o’clock in the morning….