I gotta say, I use "Google" as a verb all the time, and I'm about ready to start relaxing the requirement for capitalization. Kind of like that copier company -- do you write "please Xerox this for me" or "please xerox this for me?"
To be fair about it, "xerography" was doubtless a word formed right before the company name. It sez here:
Xerography (or Electrophotography) is a photocopying technique developed by Chester Carlson (Born Feb 8 1906 - Died Sep 19 1968) in 1938 and patented on October 6, 1942. (Patent Number(s) 2,297,691). (source)Using Google as a verb always makes me think of how hard Coca Cola worked to prevent "coke" from becoming a generic term. And then it makes me think of how hard Yahoo! tried to make their company name a verb. Remember that tiresome ad campaign? "Do you Yahoo!?" Clearly, I do.(Wait, wasn't that one of those crooked Nixon guys?)*
Remember, that is. I don't actually "yahoo." I never use that company's name as a verb. I love their email and chess services, but to me, "yahoo" is either a sarcastic exclamation or a label for someone who thinks parroting RNC talking points counts as reasoned political debate. (In Yahoo!'s favor, though, I feel ridden with guilt if I omit the exclamation point. Despite how ugly it looks in the interrogative or possessive case.)
But back to Google.
It must drive other search engine companies crazy that "Google" has become a verb in common use. I don't just hear people say this in casual conversation; I see it written in places where presumably some proofreading is happening. I mean, "Google" just plain works as a verb. Leaving aside the merits of the various search engines for the moment, can you imagine anyone saying, "I don't know. Why don't you Alta Vista it?"
But I can imagine someone saying, "So, I was on Alta Vista's site, and I thought, as long as I'm here, why not Google that hottie that I met last night?"
And the supreme irony of this whole thing is, the company name is nothing but a misspelled word, and the original word was made up by the nine-year old son of a math nerd.
*(No. You're thinking of Charles Colson.)
<geekblock>Q: What is a "googol?"
A: It's a BIG number -- 1 followed by 100 0's.Q: How big is that?
A: A million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million million is 10,000 times smaller than 1 googol.Q: How often is this number used in the everyday human experience?
A: Only when discussing the amount of dumb things done by the executive branch of the United States in the years 2001-2005.
</geekblock>
8 comments:
well actually, if you believe this(and remember the internet is all true), foreground CAN be used as a verb. besides, Brendan, have you completely forgotten your past in geekdom? did you never "background" a unix batch job so that you could "foreground" that game of letters you had to suspend while you pretended to do real work?
that said, maybe its time you grammar grinchlings learned to relax, and appreciate all of the wonderful things(such as the verbification of nouns) that can be done and have been done to our language throughout its long tortured history(i'm germanic! oh no, invasion!!! i'm 70% french. lookout!!! great vowel shift, now i'm spelled all wrong!).
english, as a result of its long standing tradition of absorbing new words and usages from many sources has grown into one of the most colorful expressive languages out there. how many other languages sport a dictionary several hundred thousands words deep? look at some of the more sweet-ass recent additions such as "strategory", "bling bling", and "cromulent".
but if you insist on pedantifying the crap outta everything, perhaps a more regular logical language like esperanto, or even an a priori conlang like unilingua
is for you. if no one else knows your language, only you will be left to screw it up.
it's a living language, CHUCH!
Ladies and gentleman, I give you TimO. Let's give him a big hand.
Okay, t-cubed, you made some points. This calls for a thoughtful post in response. Okay, that's not gonna happen.
What will happen is that the gloves will come off. Long rants will be composed. Coherency may not be an option.
Esperanto? Accusing me of playing "letters"? Bah! I was all about making Stroustrop's voice work on my SGI machine, and don't you deny it!
All right, more back at timmmmmmmm . . .
His "this" link points to a page that has the following (after first providing the noun definitions that you'd expect):
>> foreground
>> tr.v.
>> To place in the foreground; call attention to: "He is currently at work on a trilogy of pieces... which foreground the Algerian War" (Eleanor Heartney).
Dude, this is biz speak, pure and simple -- a made-up, active-sounding verb because Eleanor Heartney was too lazy to reconstruct her sentence. And how much faith can we place in someone who has two silent and superfluous e's in her last name alone? (attack the speaker, as our gummint has taught us)
My American Heritage dictionary (1973 ed.) lists the following number of definitions for "foreground" as a verb: 0
My OED (1989 ed.) lists the following number of definitions for "foreground" as a verb: 0
From what I can tell about Ms. EH from a quick Google, she is an art critic. Possibly the one job other than business consultant that I would believe more likely to make up a word that says nothing. Or at least, nothing new.
But let's not get all bogged down in one word. Let's talk, instead, about me.
I will confess to having "placed jobs in the background" as a Unix weenie. I will even admit to having brought a job "back to the foreground." Which sounds like a movie, but it isn't. But I never "foregrounded" a job. Never. Not once. I put it all in the background and continued playing . . . hey, wait a minute.
I never played this "letters" game. I never even heard of this "letters" game. The other guy in my office might have done this. Not me. I was too busy proactivating my productivity in order to impact the customerization of our mission. Statement.
I'm gonna grant the man with many M's in his name that English is a living language, and stronger for it. Despite his peculiar affection for "strategory," which sounds like a boring board game from my childhood. And regarding his tortured heritage and ethnic identity, I think we should let Leo Kottke have the last word:
>>The Germans have done for the consonant what the Hawaiians have done for the vowel.
>>-- (as heard on "A Prairie Home Companion," 6/12/2004)
Good to hear from you again, my friend.
Your proud nephew, Matt, would want you to know that some credit the mathematician's NEPHEW, not son, with coining the term. See:
unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictG.html
The legal eagle part of me has some sympathy for all those Coke spies who insist that you order a "Friendly Cola" when you're at that restaurant. Companies spend a lot of money trademarking names and creating brand identification. If the trademarked name is adopted as a colloquial word, the company loses its proprietary hold. Thus, in the U.S., we vacuum with Hoovers, but the British "hoover" their rugs.
Following up on Clare's nephew comment, I checked the rowlett link to which she referred.
The site looks fairly authoritative. I apologize, Matt. I was relying on memory when I said "son."
Note that my original post has a link pointing to a source claiming that the great namer was nine and this new source says he was eight.
Since everything on the Internet is true, I don't know what to do about this quandry, except to speculate that in our youth-obsessed culture, "nine" is the new "eight."
And finally, the rowlett source also says: "In the traditional American system for naming large numbers, the googol is equal to 10 dotrigintillion."
This should appeal to EAF.
dood, i smirklingly drop a "leverage the synergy" every chance i get, as an homage to that uniquely 'merikan brand of idiocy^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h
ingenuity: business speak. i spose verbing "foreground" falls somewhat into the same category, but come on man where's your patriotism?
they say it took about 300 years for portuguese and spanish to fully diverge into two distinct languages(whatever that means, i dont know). we cut lose from those limey brits over 200 years ago. maybe with a little work, we can one up those iberians, and 'merikan can finally receive proper recognition as a full on language in its own right.
1973? 1989? dewd, thats not even last decade, that's last century, foo! this is the 21st century now bra, behold the rise of l33t speak!!!
and puhleeez, you can't honestly tell me that you actually said stuff like "let me place that job in the background so i can bring my vim session to the foreground". you said "let me background it, so i can foreground vim" to satisfy your science orientated mind's desire to maximize verbal throughput.
when i first studied portuguese, i remember thinking sweet, its like spanish, only the words are way shorter! but then i realized that portuguese speakers use twice as many words, thus negating any increase in throughput their more compact words would otherwise bestow upon them.
h4x0rz r()()|!!!
I was just about to crash when my email dinged, telling me that the man of many M's had posted. There are things in his post that merit response, and I'll try to get to that later today. But there is one thing that I cannot permit to go unchallenged, or I'll never get to sleep.
I have never used vim. I never would use vim. People who use vim probably type on Dvorak keyboards and listen to music that sounds like sociopathic modems mating. I learned just enough vi to type <ESC>:q!
As I understand it, vim stands for "vi improved". Want to improve vi? Here's all you need to know:
% rm /usr/bin/vi
% alias vi vim
% alias vim ${EMACSPATH}/emacs
Emacs. The One True Editor. Whether in foreground or background.
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