1: Pablum 精神食粮

The term pablum（婴儿麦片食品） means "something insipid¹, simplistic, or bland²" – which is unfortunate, because its namesake（名义，同名物） was a brilliant invention.

In 1930, a trio of Canadian pediatricians（儿科医生） created a cereal called Pablum (a name based on the Latin word pabulum, meaning "food" or "fodder") to help prevent rickets³ in infants. Packed with vitamins and minerals, their cereal was precooked to be easily digestible by young bodies. The product was a lifesaver and a hit.

Because of the cereal's lack of flavor, however, the word pablum developed its metaphoric⁴ meaning – a sense that dates at least as far back as 1948.

2: Granola 格兰诺拉麦片

Granola was not, in fact, invented by hippies in the 1960s – but they did popularize the name.

The story of this cereal（谷类） begins a century earlier, with health food advocates of the 1860s.

At his health sanitarium（疗养院） in upstate New York, Dr. James C. Jackson created "granula" for his patients. Jackson formed his "granula" by breaking up sheets of twice-baked whole grain flour (then called graham flour after its developer, Sylvester Graham).

A decade later, Dr. Jackson sued Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of the Battle Creek⁵ Sanitarium for calling his own similar invention "granula." Kellogg renamed his version granola, but never really marketed it.

Back-to-basics food lovers revived Kellogg's coinage in the 1960s; the generic⁶ usage of the word granola appeared in print in 1970.

3: Jungle Gym 格子爬梯

In 1920, Chicago lawyer Sebastian Hinton trademarked the Junglegym (one word).

He modeled his structure after one devised by his mathematician⁸ father, who had envisioned children learning about three-dimensional space by climbing to specific x, y, and z coordinates⁹.

Over the decades, the beloved structure has been updated, and the trademark⁷ status lost. However, newer designs still honor what the inventor called the "monkey instinct" of kids.

The (two word) term jungle gym first appeared in 1923; the never-trademarked, closely-related term monkey bars traces to 1955.

4: Heroin¹⁰ 海洛因

In 1898, the German pharmaceutical¹¹ company Bayer began marketing¹² heroin – whose name comes from the German word heroisch（英勇） , meaning "powerful."

The product was marketed as a cough remedy（补救，治疗） made from a supposedly non-addictive morphine derivative¹³（衍生物） . It was also used as a cure for morphine addiction¹⁴ – which unfortunately caused large numbers of users to become heroin addicts¹⁵.

In part because of the growing population of "junkies" (a term that may derive¹⁶ from the fact that some supported their addictions¹⁷ by selling scrap¹⁸ metal), Bayer eventually ceased production and lost its trademark.

In 1914, American officials began regulating opiates（麻醉剂） , including the generic（一般的） , powdered version of heroin.

5: Pogo Stick 弹簧单高跷

In 1919, after a shipment of wooden jumping sticks rotted en route from Germany to the US, George Hansburg patented and trademarked a metal version: the Pogo.

He introduced it to the chorus girls of the Ziegfeld Follies¹⁹, who used the stick on stage. The ensuing Pogo fad²⁰ of the 1920s even included a couple getting married on them.

But by 1921, pogo stick was being used generically²¹, and pogo（弹簧单高跷） is no longer protected by trademark.