As you start to get comfortable within the LEGO hobby sooner or later you will likely face the startling realization that you have been referring to your favorite brand all wrong. The jolt usually gets delivered by someone who has been in the hobby longer then you, and who will look at you horrified when you proudly talk about your “legos”. To recover from the embarrassment of being detected and branded as a noob, you eagerly look for the opportunity to correct others. Depending on how it is delivered this can help to protect the brand, or help you being branded as a radical LEGO nut, fanatic, or… as in this funny comic-strip by FBTB.net, even worse…
- The LEGO brand name should always be written in capital letters
- LEGO must never be used as a generic term or in the plural or as a possessive pronoun, e.g. “LEGO’s”.
- When the LEGO brand name is used as part of a noun, it must never appear on its own. It should always be accompanied by a noun. For example, LEGO set, LEGO products, LEGO Group, LEGO play materials, LEGO bricks, LEGO universe, etc.
- The first time the LEGO brand name appears it must be accompanied by the Registered symbol ®.
There is another matter also, something which is more technical, but also more important for the long-term protection of the brand. To protect their brand name, companies have to show that they have been making reasonable effort to protect their trademarks. If they fail to do so their trademark could be permanently revoked – which basically means they would lose their identity – certain death for a company.
It may be too much to refer to our beloved toy as LEGO Bricks or LEGO Toys in everyday speech and risking sounding like the grammar-police, but we can at least try to stay away from using the plural “legos”. In writing, capitalizing LEGO doesn’t take much longer and it actually looks nicer and more professional. If you regularly blog about LEGO or share your own LEGO creations online, there are some helpful guidelines for using the LEGO name, trademark, images, etc. that you can check out here: LEGO Fair Play Guidelines & Policies.
So what do you think? What is your experience with using the LEGO brand name? Do you hear people referring to LEGO as “legos”? Does it bother you? Do you correct them? And what do you think of the policies and guidelines given by The LEGO Group? Are they easy to understand and follow? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below!
And you might also like to check out the LEGO Dictionary section to learn the language of LEGO fans, or select from the following related posts:
Learn to Speak LEGO! – Basic Terms
Learn to Speak LEGO! – Advanced Terms
How Much Do You Know About LEGO?
Wishing Happy 80th Birthday to LEGO! (video)
Growing up, I always wanted to have a LEGO set to play with. Alot of my friends had LEGO sets given to them for their birthday, although they usually end up just playing with the mini-figures instead of the entire set. And as kids we did refer to anything that was resembling a toy brick a LEGO. I personally do not have an issue with how people mention the LEGO products or how they refer to copycat brands also as "lego's", and to be quite frank I never really cared. I suppose people use the term LEGO as a blanket phrase to refer to any toys that have the brand's signature designs. In a way, it shows how popular the brand is since there are a lot of knock-off brands out in the market. This would also signify that the brand developed a one-of-a-kind design that people could only think of LEGO when they see anything resembling it.
ReplyDeleteI never realised this until now. I grew up playing LEGO and have a couple of collections from LEGO City, LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Pirates of the Carribean. I started collecting and playing LEGO because a lot of my friends had it. Although I usually pronounced the toys as “legos”, my friends didn’t mind about it, I think a lot of my friends referred it as “legos” as well. LEGO is a brand name, but in this case, people refer to the many of those tiny building bricks as “legos” because there are so many of them, and referring it as building bricks is just wrong, as other brands of building bricks are different from “legos”. The LEGO company acts like a grammar police when it comes to their brand names, I don’t think it really matters when you refer it as “legos” verbally in my opinion, it is used as a slang by people. When it comes to written texts, referring it as “legos” might not be so nice, it’s much better when you write LEGO with full capital letters, without the “s” also, as it looks more nicer and professional.
ReplyDeleteI always loved playing with LEGO and I never really thought about this issue. I guess I have always refer to it as LEGO as a whole and when I’m talking about multiple pieces of the LEGO bricks I just say LEGO Bricks or LEGO Blocks but never legos. I guess whatever you say verbally doesn’t always have to be grammatically correct as long as people know what you’re talking about. But, when you have to speak formally or maybe write in a formal way it might be best to avoid the word ‘legos’ and just stick with LEGO, LEGO Bricks, or LEGO Blocks. In the end it gives everyone joy, not just for kids but for adults who like to collect LEGO and frame them or put them in a glass shelf in the house. I guess we could keep calling them legos when we’re just talking with friends, it’s not such a big deal.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most popular types of creative and educational toys in the world, lego, is known as a type of game that is beneficial to the brain. How not, Lego can be a means of creating and becoming a vehicle for channeling imagination. When I was younger I used to play lego with my counsins and friends. So then I will try to explain how Lego has several benefits for children including honing fine motor skills and persistence, practicing problem solving skills and cooperating, fostering confidence, learning technology, science, engineering and mathematics, and stimulate children's creativity. I also added how Lego is also useful as a method of color recognition in children, as well as exercising self-confidence. I also believe that playing lego also trains self confidence (children), so they also dare to present. It trains them to chat, initially only in front of parents, after that with their classmates.
ReplyDeleteThe world of children is not far from the name of the game. Among the many types of games that exist, parents must be very clever in choosing toys for children. In this case, choose educational toys that can be a means of learning children, train dexterity, creativity and the ability of social interaction. Lego comes in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes. When playing Lego with your little one, use this opportunity to introduce children to various colors, shapes and sizes. After introducing, you can also start asking whether the color of the Lego is held by the child or what color is suitable for the foundation of the building. Slowly, he will start memorizing, recognizing and distinguishing types of colors, sizes and shapes. In addition, at the top of Lego there are arising dots that can be used as a medium for learning to count for children. Fine motor conditions that still need to be trained make children often impatient in assembling Lego.
DeleteAssembling Lego requires the accuracy of position between one another, so it needs motivation from parents so that children want to fight and be patient in doing it. By playing Lego, your child's hand and eye coordination is trained. In addition, some of the benefits of playing Lego such as exercising the ability of children to choose, control, place and move objects will also develop well. Besides that, Lego is also believed to be a suitable game for children with special needs such as children with autism. When they (children with autism) play lego, of course it helps them to interact with people especially when playing with other people, so it will automatically make them to get used to communicate with to other people. By playing Lego, I explained, teenagers and adults have a place to do stress management, become a social communication discourse, sharpen their ability to listen, speak and empathize, contribute positively to mental health and help to increase learning productivity and work.
DeleteThe benefit of playing Lego next is that it can increase creativity and problem solving skills, which is important for parents to teach their children. In a Lego game, children can follow instructions to make stacking blocks so they are assembled according to the model or arranged freely according to their imagination, this will increase their creativity. Let the children occasionally arrange Legos according to their own imagination to practice their creativity. When assembling Lego into a building or model, it is not uncommon for children to experience difficulties. Well, this is one of the benefits of playing Lego for children, which is to practice problem solving skills. Encourage your child or young family member to keep the spirit of completing the model he will make. Don't forget, however the results of the child's Lego arrangement, give awards and suggestions so that he can practice better.
DeleteLego or Legos has filled so much of my memory of my childhood, I can spend almost 2 hours every day after school just building a whole town with my brother. Each day our town’s form will depend on our imagination. Lego without a doubt has been very entertaining yet sharpening our creativity at the very same time, just like the short movie has said, Lego tries to put a system on it, by doing so, it helps children to analyze how will be the final forms, and how do they do it. While playing it, I’ve never known what to call them, all I knew is that they are all Lego bricks just like what Akbar has said, and now after watching the movie of how they creator found the name, facing all the struggle and until accidentally founding a meaning of the word Lego as “assembling it” Lego really is a creative name.
ReplyDeleteThe movie also tells me how the Lego company has been focusing until this instance that majorly on the quality of every piece because when one component has a low quality than the whole system tend to be weaker, no wonder that now the price of each set can be very expensive. Looking at Lego back then, just when I was sitting in my second grade, Lego was less innovative and more vulnerable to be broken. However, now when we look at the Lego shelf in the Toy Stores, we could find many various forms of Lego, starting from a Ninja, Batman, Firefighter, Airport, until the plane itself. This is where the difference can be seen, nowadays Lego is diverse, so many types of it being produced. Therefore, I think this is the part of the creativity of Lego that they try to always evaluate through times, for the purpose of enlightening a children’s fantasy.
DeleteLego really sharpens my creativity and accuracy towards building something as a kid. Back in my childhood days, me and my brothers used to collect Lego bricks and build it with and without the instruction booklet. You really can’t replace the satisfaction after you’ve finished building a tower, ship, island or any other things using Lego bricks because it is for me a feeling like no other. I remember myself joined a Lego building competition as a kid with my brother and ended up in second place. I would consider that as one of the highlights of my childhood memories because it really impacts my life nowadays. Building Lego really sharpen my creative skills because nowadays I love to design things and also build a more complicated model kit called Gunpla (it is a model kit based on the Japanese robot called Gundam). As for the information stated above that the word Legos is wrong and should be Lego bricks, I consider that as a new knowledge for me because I always think the word Legos is a common thing to say.
ReplyDelete