Comment by crazygringo 7 hours ago
See my other comment for its popularity statistics. Victorinox is literally the #1 multitool brand by market share. These are facts.
Your take is idiosyncratic. Using a SAK doesn't mean "you probably screwed up". That's truly a bizarre thing to say.
A SAK is a perfectly fine metaphor. That's why it's a popular one. It's a small tool that does lots of things. I think you're overthinking this.
> are English as a second language writers who perhaps came across it somewhere
Your prejudice is showing. Where would you even get an idea like that?
I hope you understand that people whose first language isn't English also use SAKs. It's not just an English thing. They're not trying to repeat some unknown object they've only encountered in metaphor. The tools are literally Swiss. And popular around the entire world.
You’re absolutely right. I was just in Switzerland and I’ll tell you the Victorinox shops have endless visitors from all kinds of tourists. Swiss Army knife metaphor is timeless, at least for those who go out. Maybe there’s a generation where outdoor activities is an unknown because computers. At this point the other person is just being argumentative.
I'm being argumentative? Uproarious.
Arguing that my observations are invalid because you were in a Victorinox shop in Switzerland is the chef's kiss on this ridiculous discussion.
In the future, just move along. The other argumentative guy had no reason to get defensive about SAK, and this whole worthless discussion, from a basic observation about idioms and ill-suited tools, is a waste of bits.
It doesn't remotely repudiate anything I said, more than saying that Gpvos is the #1 seller of buggy whips ergo ipso facto buggy whips are super popular. This is not a hard logical chain to follow, so good god.
But secondly, even that site claimed they have what, a 20% marketshare of multitools from once owning the market entirely to themselves? Even if we were so profoundly simple that we believed that being the biggest vendor in a market validates the market, this particular example is hilarious.
If you opened the link, literally the first line says:
> The Swiss Army Knife (multi-tool) market, currently valued at $402 million in 2025
Nearing half a billion dollars doesn't sound like buggy whips to me.
And the bar chart clearly extrapolates the market continuing to grow. Not shrink.
But you still think the #1 brand in a large and growing market is "positively non-existent"...?
Again, for convenience:
https://www.marketreportanalytics.com/reports/swiss-army-kni...
>Victorinox is literally the #1 multitool brand by market share
This doesn't repudiate anything I said, and it's a particularly weird canard.
>That's why it's a popular one
Increasingly the only ones I see leveraging the metaphor are English as a second language writers (note that the idiom originates in English and is a calque in other languages) who perhaps came across it somewhere. I would hardly call it "popular", and I pointed out the reality that many readers, such as myself, find it a negative description, similar to someone calling themselves a "jack of all trades". Your defensiveness of SAK does not change this, and your attempts at invalidating my statement borders on bizarre.
Feel free to continue. I'm done here.