July 6, 2006 Comments
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Not long after Google became the prevailing king of search, journalists, bloggers and people began using the engine's name as a verb to describe ANY online search. Google was never a very big fan of that approach, even going so far as to send letters or emails to journalists asking them not to use the word in that manner. Word is out this week though that the folks at Merriam-Webster have officially included the word in their newest version of their popular collegiate dictionary.
From an AP article on the subject...
"Google is definitely a verb," said Dan Reynolds, a 35-year-old salesman at YES Computers in Northampton. "Google has become like a secondary brain for a lot of people. If you want quick info on something, that's what you do. You google it."
Respectful of the trademark, Merriam-Webster lowercases the entry but maintains the capitalization while explaining that the verb means "to use the Google search engine" to retrieve online information.
"We're defining a trademark as a verb, just like we did with the word xerox," Morse said.
That means that Google will join Kleenex, Xerox and Chicken McNuggets as brand names that are so ubiquitous that they now apply to ALL similar products.
Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs. A former search marketing consultant and in-house trainer, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children. Her primary clients now are a little girl named Elnora and a little boy named Emmitt.
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