What is a more common name in this country for an item originally called an "India rubber"?

The object we use to correct pencil marks was once widely known by a name that points to its origins. The term "India rubber" was used for the caoutchouc or "gum elastic" material that was shipped to Europe from the West Indies. Before its popular use for erasing, people often used breadcrumbs to remove graphite marks. That changed in 1770 when an English engineer named Edward Nairne reportedly picked up a piece of this rubber by mistake and discovered its erasing properties. He began selling the first rubber erasers, and the material soon became known simply as "rubber" due to the rubbing motion used to remove pencil marks.

While the term "rubber" remains common in the United Kingdom and many other English-speaking countries, the name more familiar in the United States comes from the function it performs. The word "erase" is derived from the Latin "eradere," which means to "scrape out." Over time, this led to the agent noun "eraser" to describe the tool that does the erasing. This functional description became the standard term in American English.

Early versions of the rubber eraser were not very durable and would often perish over time. This problem was solved in 1839 when Charles Goodyear invented the process of vulcanization, which cured the rubber and made it much more resilient. A couple of decades later, in 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil, cementing its place as an indispensable tool for students and writers.