In Douglas Fox's article about why we treat things like people (27 November 2010, p 32), he mentions Microsoft's annoying animated paperclip. That it is referred to as "Clippy" throughout the article, while its actual name is "Clippit", is a good indication of just how forgotten it is.
It isn't the only piece of technology to be commonly misnamed, either. Many people refer to a particular city get-about as the Smart Car when it is, of course, just called Smart.
Maybe there ought to be a name for the phenomenon where something is known more widely by an erroneous name than by its correct one?
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