To Google or Not to Google?
Have you Googled a company, TiVoed a television program or Photoshopped a picture recently? If so, you’re guilty of genericide, or using a company’s name or product in a generic sense — specifically, in each of these examples, as a verb.
At first glance, this may seem like a good thing. After all, isn’t that just what a company wants? To own a word that is instantly recognized and commonly used throughout the world?
Google, fearing the loss of its trademark, discourages using its name as a verb, especially when it pertains to using other search engines to find information on the Web. Michael Krantz, a blogger for Google wrote: “While we’re pleased that so many people think of us when they think of searching the Web, let’s face it, we do have a product to protect, so we’d like to make clear that you should please only use ‘Google’ when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services.” He went on to cite examples of correct and incorrect usage of the word.
Problem is, not everybody uses words as they’re supposed to be used (think of all the English teachers who’d be out of jobs). The Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary recognized the popularity of google and added it to their latest additions, keeping it lowercase when referring to the action and uppercase when referring to the company.
Oddly enough, Google founder Larry Page is credited/blamed for first using google as a verb in 1988. He wrote: “Have fun and keep googling!” on a mailing list.
P.S. Do you know the origin of the the word google? According to Forbes.com, the word is “a misspelling of the word ‘googol’ which refers to 10 to the power of 100 (the number followed by one-hundred zeros), and the moniker reflects the company’s quixotic quest to organize the limitless amount of information on the Web.”
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