~10 years ago I would say “google it” often. But now I don’t think I say that at all, and would say “search for it” or similar.
I don’t think I really consciously decided to stop saying it, but I suppose it just felt weird to explicitly refer to one search engine while using another.
Just me? Do you say, or hear others say, “google it” in $current_year? Is it different for techies and normies?
You must log in or register to comment.
Yes.
I genuinely think we could one day reach a point where Google is no longer the dominant way to search for things, and yet people will still say “Google it”.
Yeah, happens all the time. Can’t think of an English example right now but
the German verb for putting on makeup is “schminken” although nobody really knows the company “Schminke” anymore.One English example is to “hoover” - people say it all the time when they mean using the vacuum cleaner, whether or not it’s made by Hoover.
“Jello” is a brand name, which I think may be the example most people in the US specifically don’t realize. There are tons of others.
I think “googling” counts because a) it kinda makes sense even without the branding, b) I hear it all the time, and c) I say it myself even though I haven’t used Google as my default search engine for ages.
You know, I mostly only know the US examples of this and always assumed it was just more common here, now I’m wondering about generic trademarks around the world.
I know a few. Xerox is used for photocopying in other languages. Kleenex is the accepted term for “paper tissue” in Spain. Zodiac and Vespa are used for specific types of ship and motorcycle in multiple places, even when not manufactured by those brands. Thermos is a brand name, used in multiple countries as well. Sellotape is used in the UK for transparent sticky tape.
I don’t speak every regional variant of every language, but the short answer is this is definitely not a US thing. At all.
We definitely use all of those in the US as well, though I haven’t heard the Zodiac one. I was asking more for regional things like this rather than saying it was just something in the US.
Ever heard of hook and loop fasteners? The Velcro company would really like it if you called it hook and loop fasteners.
They REALLY would. (A few other examples are mentioned also)
I have never heard a person say “hoover” as a verb
They said English, but they mean British English.
I also use it in reference to hoovering up a fat line of blow into my schnozz
Really? Maybe it’s a UK thing, I dunno. Very, very common here :-)
I know for a fact I’ve said I was going to “Xerox some copies” on a machine that was almost certainly not manufactured by the Xerox Holdings Corporation.
Just learnt of a new example today. In Australia a common kind of small tree is called a “wattle”. It’s flowers are yellow, everyone in Australia knows about them, and the flower is the floral emblem of the country (the yellow and green colours of Australian sports teams is probably from the flower too).
The name “wattle” however comes from “wattle and daub” (wikipedia), a method of construction that uses woven branches filled with some form of clay\cement like material such as mud. “Wattle” trees were ideal for and just used very often for “wattle and daub” building in early colonial times that it’s name became “wattle”, which generally refers to the woven branches. Now no one knows that construction technique or its name, but the know the tree’s name very well.
Otherwise, the save icon being a floppy disc is a clear visual example in technology that’s just now-ish passing beyond its redundancy.
Otherwise, the save icon being a floppy disc is a clear visual example in technology that’s just now-ish passing beyond its redundancy.
It cracks me up that cars have a phone icon based on a handset style from an old home landline phone. I guess enough businesses still use them?
So does my iPhone for that matter.
So does my android, but I somehow find the icon in the car even more entertaining since it reminds me of when the first cars with mobile phones in the 80s actually had handsets!
Do you have any reference for that? The internet claims that word is around since the 15th century.
I think I saw it on TV. Guess I was wrong.
You still got a point. Other examples would be “Nutella”, “Tesa”, “Edding”, famously also “Tempo”, “Zewa” …
“Selters” in the East for sparkling water. And I guess for the English language Champagne qualifies, although the clarification in this case even became a meme.
Xerox for making copies
Immediately thought of this:
I think it’s a verb now whether we like it or not
I get band aids at the store and kleenex. Not self adhesive medical bandages and tissue paper
And velcro is velcro, not “hook and loop fastener”.
I have a coke, not a “carbonated beverage”.
Etc etc.
Jacuzzi, zipper, crockpot, dumpster, pong pong, escalator, chapstick, popsicle, frisbee and styrofoam are all examples of the same thing, known as trademark erosion
Do you call it a coke when youre having a different drink though?
I don’t, but lots of people in the Southern United States do. I think in English I’d just call it “a soda” generically.
I live in Finland and our generic word for a sugary soft drink is “limu”/“limppari”, which comes from “limonaati”, a nativised version of “lemonade”.
In England we call it pop. Or fizzy drinks. E.g. “what fizzy drinks do you have?” “We have Coke, Fanta, Lemonade”
I remember the Velcro legal campaign insisting generics or other brands refer to it as hook and loop and I thought it was a missed opportunity. Velcro brand Velcro or simply Velcro™ with the trademark would be adequate differentiation between the brand and the technology. It would also remind everyone who invented it, much like Kodak and Xerox.
Made me think of this
I still do sometimes, despite using DDG for about a decade now and working in IT myself. Haven’t met anyone who doesn’t say it in my area.
Same. I don’t really use Google search any more, but I still keep the phrase. It’s just something people understand.
You could say that you’re “Binging it”
Edit: downvotes from people unaware that DDG is just Bing in a duck hat
Ive been saying “search online” instead
This is important I think. While the word has clearly stuck beyond the actual company’s services … the word “search” in IT hasn’t died and will likely still be used. If the word ever fades away, it may be in part because “search” lived.
I also try to say “look it up online” as much as possible in stead of Googling it.
Meanwhile I have called “searching within a physical filing cabinet” googling once or twice.
I primarily use DDG, but the vast majority of people I talk to (including other tech savvy people) use Google. I feel like “search” is too generic (search where?), but “search the internet” is weird. And saying “Bing it” or “Duck it” or whatever just sounds overly contrarian. But if I say “Google it”, people know exactly what I mean.
So yes, I will “Google where to buy some bandaids” by searching DDG for adhesive bandages.
Yes, same way i say i need a “Kleenex” to open the door to the “Porta potty” so i don’t have to shit in the “dumpster”.
Edit: if it were actually a commercial, it would be the best commercial ever created.
I use duckduckgo.
I want “duck it” to become a thing.
Autocorrect is rooting for you.
Duck you
That’s what I say. So far, nobody around me has adopted it 🦆
Everyone knows what is meant by “Google it” even though there are other options now.
It’s like when I ask you for a Kleenex or Band Aid and many other brand and product names that became a synonym for the generic product in general.
Xerox it.
Tape a show.
I saw someone once suggest we popularize saying “Bing it”.
I tell people to altavista it
Encarta it!
AskJeeves it!
Infoseek it
Uh, “Bing it” ! 🥴
I even google on DuckDuckGo. The more we use googling to mean “to search on the web” the more likely it is that Google will lose their trademark at some point.
I’ve been trying to say “search online” or “websearch” for the past year or two.
Now that you’ve got me thinking about this, I wonder if there are any journalist style guides that cover this. That’s often an interesting reference point for what people are saying versus an attempt at more objective way.
I feel like “google it” has become a shorter version of “look it up online” and can be used, regardless of the search engine
Google is about to sue you because they don’t want to lose their trademark.
I still ask Jeeves. He gave me his personal number before the site shut down.
“Is he safe? Is he alright?”
Me, all over this thread:
It is weird to observe younger generations using search engines with how they treat them as some sort of fully natural language processing butlers.
Where you or I might formulate a query as: “films famous within Italy” or simply “famous Italian films”
Gen alpha will generally conduct that same search as: “What are the movies that are most famous in Italy?”
Does it give a different result? I think it doesn’t matter. In that case it might be more natural to speak in full sentences for those who never had the need to be specific and concise to a search engine. Because there used to be a need to be specific and concise to have the search engine give you a good result. Now it’s so heavily optimised and commercialised, it doesn’t really matter what you input.
I think it used to, the way I search as a netizen for 20 years is definitely more of a “keyword” style like the original commenter mentioned, but that comes down to how I became “trained” to search as a lot of the unnecessary words used to make the results less accurate in my experience. I think search engines have gotten better at figuring out what the root of the request is, while also serving up more crap in general due to SEO gaming.
