It looks like Google’s lawyers on the warpath against language change. I have read a few books on the subject and wish them the best of luck in their endeavour to ban using the word ‘Google’ as a verb because it is a trademark. Beware – do not use these forms of google in written or spoken communicaiton:
To google
I google
You google
He/she/it googles
We google
You google
They google
(and any I may have left out, but you get the gist, right)
Why is their fight doomed from the word go? Language economy and we (the people) will best decide how to describe the world we live in. Why use more words than necessary? It is far easier to say “I googled and found…” than “I performed an extensive, far reaching search for internet based material using the Google (TM) search engine – arguably the best search engine in the world (sorry Carlsberg) – and found…”.
If we (the people) decide to do one thing with words (even if it is grammatically incorrect) we will – and eventually it will become a rool. Methinks them lawyers be bored, but let us entertain them with a poem:
I ketchupped my fries
I cheesed my pizza
I bibled the words of Jesus
To google is frugal
Oh Lawyer! you fool
Lay down your law wielding tool
You will loose
…
3 Comments
I was just hoovering my floor when I cut my finger and put on a bandaid (if I was an American, that is,otherwise I would just put on a plaster). Later I binned my rubbish. Then I sat down and drank a coke.
And the TM often used as a verb: to xerox.
“To xerox” has become so widely used, that Xerox ™ now stresses, that their mashines don’t xerox.
They photocopy.
How’s that for irony?
I’ll go gilette myself, before embarking on some serious carlsberging….
Googling… Is that the internet equivalent of libraring???
/y
I am going to get my mac and my wellies and go for a walk in the rain.