
Smarties: How the stocking staple got its name - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-42244389
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mstade
Tl;dr: no one knows how they came up with the name. It used to be called other
things before branding became a thing. Board minutes don’t detail where the
name Smarties came from, just that it was decided.

The title is a misrepresentation of the article really, it should really be
something like “Smarties: How the stocking staple came to be” since it’s more
a chronicle of its origins, than an account of how it got its name. Still an
interesting read though.

~~~
freshyill
It was an interesting article. Did the title really bother you that much?

~~~
mstade
Kind of, yeah. I liked the article and found it interesting, even said as
much, but given the title I expected to learn how the name came about and I
didn’t. The article doesn’t do what it said on the tin, as it were,
interesting as it may have been.

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djhworld
The packaging change the article is referring to was when Smarties used to
come in a carboard tube, with a plastic lid at one end.

[http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/ae76784029684feb8d06d507f47ff7ad/c...](http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/ae76784029684feb8d06d507f47ff7ad/close-
up-of-old-style-smarties-tubes-e2137c.jpg)

As a child it was fun to eat the sweets, then replace the lid and crush the
tube to make the lid travel quite surprising distances

~~~
chiph
You can still do that with a Pringles [0] can - the pitch of the "boomp" will
be quite a bit lower since the can diameter is larger.

[0] Potato snack chip ("crisp" for our UK readers) formed into hyperbolic
paraboloids, which stack neatly in a cardboard tube

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anonfunction
These are the European Smarties, not the american kind[1] which are more of a
flavored chalk than a chocolate covered by a candy shell.

1\.
[http://caffeineplease.typepad.com/caffeine_please/images/200...](http://caffeineplease.typepad.com/caffeine_please/images/2007/11/12/smarties.jpg)

~~~
chrisseaton
Both sweets are British originally.

Fizzers is the British name for the tablet sweets, and the original one. They
were renamed Smarties when they were imported to the US, like how Harry Potter
was renamed!

[http://idsgn.org/posts/parallels-fizzers-rockets-
smarties/](http://idsgn.org/posts/parallels-fizzers-rockets-smarties/)

M&Ms are also just a copy of the existing chocolate Smarties.

~~~
goodcanadian
And for fun, those things are called Rockets in Canada as we do have the
chocolate Smarties.

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Jaruzel
_In 2005, Nestlé axed its cylindrical tube, much beloved by collectors
hoarding the lids imprinted with letters, aliens and football phrases, in
favour of a hexagonal shape._

However, you can still buy the larger tubes (150g) which are still
cylindrical. That size is now the one given to kids at Christmas.

~~~
fian
Hmmm, Smarties in Australia used to come in a small rectangular box and you
opened it at one of the ends.

I can't recall ever seeing Smarties in cylindrical tubes with plastic lids.

Feels like we missed out on some fun.

After M&Ms were introduced in the 80's, Smarties became less common. I
remember thinking Smarties tasted better at the time, but now I feel Smarties
have lower quality chocolate than M&Ms. Maybe it is just familiarity bias.

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irrational
Are M&Ms called Smarties in Europe?

~~~
ldjb
I don't know about other countries in Europe, but here in the UK, we have both
Smarties and M&Ms (in fact, there is a massive M&Ms store in Leicester Square,
London). Although they are similar, they are produced by different companies.
Here's a page outlining some of the differences between the two sweets:

[http://www.candyblog.net/blog/item/head_to_head_smarties_vs_...](http://www.candyblog.net/blog/item/head_to_head_smarties_vs_mms)

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smartoes
In America, “smarties” are the cheapest, most hated, begrudgingly eaten,
chalky Halloween candy imaginable.

[https://www.smarties.com](https://www.smarties.com)

The only thing worse than these chalk smarties are the Necco valentines day
conversation sweetheart candies, that are roughly the same degree of
chalkiness, but compressed to diamond-hard, tooth breaking unchewability.

This article is about M&M’s which, I guess England... refers to as...
smarties.

~~~
goodcanadian
This article is NOT about M&Ms. While superficially similar, they are made by
different companies. Smarties predate M&Ms by decades.

~~~
smartoes
Yeah, and that’s incredible, gee, but in America we just do not have any other
word for this variety of candy coated chocolate thing, but oh my god brand
names, wow.

What next? Bitching someone out about trademark law because they referred to a
photocopy as a xerox? Watch out!

So yeah, awesome downvotes. Good job.

