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Merriam-Webster Adds New Verb: To Google
Something that has been used as common vernacular among online users for most of the nils now is using the word "google" as a verb replacement for "search". Its dominance as the first-choice search engine makes it easier to say "did you google it?" instead "did you go online and enter (fill in the blank) in a search engine portal to see if you could find out more information on (fill in the blank).
Well, I missed this announcement last month and just spotted it now...
Apparently, it's official: Google has become such an essential part of modern speech that it's now in the Merriam Webster dictionary, after the Oxford dictionary added it in June.
The next next hardbound dictionary edition will include "google" as a transitive verb, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information . . . on the World Wide Web."
The listing puts Google in the select realm of trademark companies and products that altered the English language, such as Xerox and Kleenex. Google's reaction? They think it's "appropriate."
Hmmm, as an interesting note, Google's listing on merriamwebster.com is surrounded by, what else?
Ads from Google.
Guess those "Adwords" make "AdSense"...
UPDATE 8/14: Google still isn't liking its name being used as a verb. According to U.K. newspaper The Independent, to google or not to google is now a legal question. They say Google's "sense of humour crashes as it fires off warning letters over use of name as a verb", seeing it as a threat to their copyright protections. Isn't it every marketer's dream...to get their brand completely linked with a product? This is just silly on Google's part...or, perhaps, more clever marketing ploys to keep Google in the public conversation. As if they needed more...
posted by Unknown @ Friday, August 04, 2006,
