This is one of those musing posts and comes from one of the challenges I have when teaching a feature that Microsoft chose to call 'Generics'.  I think this name was picked by someone, who while reasonably familiar with English wasn't a native speaker of the English language.  Thus they found a definition and thought it applied - allow me to elaborate.

What is a .NET Generic - well in short - under the original implementation of .NET collection classes contained a set of other objects.  However, these classes didn't know specifically what kind of object they contained.  Instead a given collection might contain more then one different type of object, for example numbers stored in a collection with strings and image objects.  It wasn't possible to say thata given collection would contain only a specific type of class. 

With the introduction of 'Generics' it was possible to indicate that a given collection would only contain a specific type of object.  That's right the feature Generics describes a set of rules and syntax for ensuring a collection is of a specific type.  Now the challenge comes from how the definition of generic is phrased in some dictionaries: "Relating to or descriptive of an entire group or class"

Notice that the preceding definition basically associates the definition of a generic with a class.  Thus if you were searching the dictionary for a word that described a class - well there you have it.  Unfortunately this use of the word "class" doesn't relate to the use of the word "class" in object oriented programming.  In this use a class is more of a category of like items - not the definition of a single item. 

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

(http://dictionary.reference.com/help/web1913.html)

Generic

Ge*ner"ic\, Generical \Ge*ner"ic*al\, a. [L. genus, generis, race, kind: cf. F. g['e]n['e]rique. See Gender.]

1. (Biol.) Pertaining to a genus or kind; relating to a genus, as distinct from a species, or from another genus; as, a generic description; a generic difference; a generic name.

2. Very comprehensive; pertaining or appropriate to large classes or their characteristics; -- opposed to specific.

That's right the word I most frequently use to describe the feature Generic is the one which defines the opposite of the definition of the word generic....

I don't think Microsoft can really do much about this, it's just one of those things that make you wonder...