Lego Lego Lego Lego
Mina Spartin
Yes, I always refer to them as LEGO as much as possible. When talking with kids, or non-AFOLs, I am fine with people saying legos. I am guilty of saying it as well from time to time so as to not alienate anyone with my snobbishness.
@Hkan, Wikipedia is not the ideal authority in this case. I would suggest that using the brand usage guidelines that the LEGO Group created and provides at the end of their Company Profile PDF is the best source.
Also, just would like to request to please keep in mind that this is a family-friendly site. I have slightly edited your comment to make it more appropriate for our audience. Thank you for your cooperation in this regard.
I think a lot of this has to do with the media. If media personalities keep using a word, name or term wrong, people pick it up. And then children naturally imitate how adults use the language. But yes, the box says LEGO, and in LEGO published books, articles and other materials they are always consistent.
They are LEGO products primarily LEGO bricks. I have always known the Duplo a sub brand of LEGO is written on box per way I wrote Duplo use to be Duplo blocks but within reccent years changed to Duplo bricks. It is just respectful to not use plural form of Lego or Duplo. It is sort of like Crayola crayons we never plurlize Crayola when are talkin about the brand.
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Owners of trademarks are free to make whatever pronouncements they like regarding how people should use their trademarks. Users of the English language, however, have the final say of how the English language works.
The LEGO Group is another example of a company which tries to strictly adhere to INTA's specifications, and aggressively protect its own trademarks. Its last standing LEGO patent expired in 1988 (CBC News), but despite other competitors moving in on its interlocking brick technology, trademarks can be kept forever, as long as LEGO makes sure to protect them. One almost embarrassing display of trademark anxiety is the domain Upon visiting the domain, the visitor would receive this notice:
In Danish (where the name comes from; derived from "leg godt" meaning "play good"), Norwegian, and Swedish, the name is an uncountable noun. I think it's both because it refers more to a concept than any actual piece. And also many of the pieces are small enough to be effectively "uncountable" like "grain", "sand", etc. I would personally use the word as an uncountable noun in English too. Calling it "Legos" sounds a bit odd (like saying "the Internets" etc.).
I just found a page arguing that LEGO is not really a noun at all; it's an adjective. To me, this sounds right; it explains why "legos" sounds so wrong. It's comparable to referring to some purple bricks as "purples".
The natural English language inclination would be to call the bricks (and other pieces) "Legos", but to trademark lawyers, trademarks are always to be used as attributive modifiers, not nouns. For this reason, the Lego company produced a famous warning not just on their web site, but long before the web existed. It was printed on the little catalogs that came in our sets:
LEGO is a brand name that is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely appreciate your help in keeping it special by referring to our bricks as "LEGO Bricks or Toys" and not just "LEGOS". By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand name that stands for quality the world over.
For this reason, the Lego vs. Legos debate has become a sort of shibboleth for the fan community. It's a signifier that the person you're talking to either grew up as one of those geeky fans, or is tied into the loose network of builders, makers, and artists for whom Lego is a passion. In many ways the technical correctness (or hyper-correctness) isn't as important as this cultural implication.
I would argue the word has moved from a proper noun to a general noun, so long has it been in the language; hence my use of it in lowercase. The representation of it in allcaps, is a marketing device of the company, for trademark usage, they do not use it themselves within most text, so I do not believe it to be necessary (particularly as that usually indicates an acronym, which it is not). If keeping it as a proper noun, then it should be initial caps.
LEGO is a line of toys featuring plastic bricks, gears, minifigures (also called minifigs and figs) in a variety of colors, and other pieces which can be assembled to create models of almost anything imaginable. Cars, planes, trains, buildings, castles, sculptures, ships, spaceships, and even working robots are just part of a extremely short list of the many things that can be built with LEGO bricks. High production quality and careful attention to detail ensures that LEGO pieces can fit together in myriad ways, which is one of the main reasons for the toy brand's success. Coincidentally, "LEGO" translates into various Latin meanings such as "Assemble" and "Connect".
The LEGO Group had humble beginnings, starting in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. The word LEGO is a contraction of two Danish words leg and godt meaning play well. In 1916, Christiansen bought a woodworking shop in Billund which had been in business since 1895. He earned his living by constructing houses and furniture for farmers in the region, with the help of a small staff of apprentices. His workshop burned down in 1924 when a fire, lit by two of his young sons, ignited some wood shavings. Undaunted, Ole Kirk took the disaster as an opportunity to construct a larger workshop, and worked towards expanding his business even further; however, the Great Depression would soon have an impact on his livelihood. In finding ways to minimize production costs, Ole Kirk began producing miniature versions of his products as design aids. It was these miniature stepladders and ironing boards that inspired him to begin producing toys.
(Note: According to a LEGO employee in Denmark, Ole Kirk's move to toy production was actually inspired by the government, rather than self-motivated. Various literature appears to be to the contrary, implying that Ole Kirk actively decided to move on to toy manufacture. However, more personal recollections and retellings suggest that when Ole Kirk's carpentry shop was going out of business in 1932, his local social worker suggested or otherwise encouraged him to make toys.)
In 1932, Ole Kirk's shop started making wooden pull toys, piggy banks, cars and trucks. He enjoyed a modest amount of success, but families were poor and often unable to afford such toys. Farmers in the area sometimes traded food in exchange for his toys; Ole Kirk found he had to continue producing practical furniture in addition to toys in order to stay in business. In the mid-1930s, the yo-yo toy fad gave him a brief period of activity, until it suddenly collapsed. Once again, Ole Kirk turned disadvantage to his favor, turning the disused yo-yo parts into wheels for a toy truck. His son, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, began working for him, taking an active role in the company.
It was in 1934 that the company name LEGO was coined. Ole Kirk held a contest among his staff to see who could come up with the best name for the company, offering a bottle of homemade wine as a prize. Christiansen was considering two names himself, "Legio" (with the implication of a "Legion of toys") and "LEGO", a self-made contraction from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well." Later the LEGO Group discovered that "LEGO" can be loosely interpreted as "I put together" or "I assemble" in Latin.
When plastic came into widespread use, Ole Kirk kept with the times and began producing plastic toys. One of the first modular toys to be produced was a truck that could be taken apart and re-assembled. In 1947, Ole Kirk and Godtfred obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. These "Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks" were designed and patented by Mr. Hilary Harry Fisher Page, a British citizen. In 1949 the LEGO Group began producing similar bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks." LEGO bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; however, these plastic bricks could be "locked" together. They had several round "studs" on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. They would stick together, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart. In 1953, the bricks were given a new name: LEGO Mursten, or "LEGO Bricks."
The use of plastic for toy manufacture was not highly regarded by retailers and consumers of the time. Many of the LEGO Group's shipments were returned, following poor sales; it was thought that plastic toys could never replace wooden ones. Despite such criticism, however, the Kirk Christiansens persevered. By 1954, Godtfred had become the junior managing director of the LEGO Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that struck the idea of a toy "system." Godtfred saw the immense potential in LEGO bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their "locking" ability was limited, and they were not very versatile. It was not until 1958 that the modern-day brick design was developed. The bricks were improved with hollow tubes in the underside of the brick. This added support in the base, enabling much better locking ability and improved versatility. That same year, Ole Kirk Christiansen died, and Godtfred inherited leadership of the company.
The LEGO Group matured a great deal over the next up and coming years. In 1959, the Futura division was founded within the company. Its tiny staff was responsible for generating ideas for new sets. Another warehouse fire struck the LEGO Group in 1960, consuming most of the company's inventory of wooden toys; fortunately for the company, the LEGO brick line was strong enough by then that the company decided to abandon production of wooden toys. By the end of the year, the staff of the LEGO Group had come to be over 450 total people.
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