"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in
:

N Cook wrote:

It was all over the UK media at the time that the crews of the planes
were overpowered by people armed only with box-cutters. As that is
not , until then, a recognised UK term , I assumed it must be a USA
term. A UK generic , ie not trade name, is a craft knife or
retractable blade craft knife.

snip

it appears that a box cutter is a plastic Chinese knockoff of the
all
metal 'Razor knife'. the blades are so poor that they are scored to
break off the bad tips. The first time I saw one of those was about 25
years ago, and it was US packaged as a "Disposable Utility Knife".
Those cheap knives are used to open shipping cartons, simply because
they are cheap, and so poor quality it's hard to cut yourself, when
compared to a good utility knife.


A box cutter is a flat hollow rectangle of metal with a flat rectangel of
metal that slides inside. The inner rectangle has notch where the top of a
single edged razor blade sits and a triangular section removed at the front
so that a small part of the blade is exposed. You push on the back end of
the device to expose the bit of blade and push it back in to cover the
blade when not in use. It has been used in stores for decades for
unpacking boxes...