Google verbiedt werkwoord Googelen.

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Google is now a verb, meaning to search. It sounds like the ultimate compliment to the company, so why do its lawyers want to keep the word out of our dictionaries?

Google is best known as an internet search engine but its tentacles have spread to range of other web applications.

There's Google News - a news portal; Google Webquotes - a database of sayings; Google Glossary - a catalogue of words and phrases; and the spin-off shopping site Froogle.

Yet amid all this activity there is one thing Google is trying to steer clear of - the dictionary.

In the US Google has mutated into a verb. Singletons will "google" a new boyfriend or girlfriend - run their name through a search engine - to check them out. People now talk about "googling" and "being googled".

On an episode of ER, shown on Channel 4 in the UK this week, colleagues of Dr Susan Lewis talked of "googling" her blind date.

And singer Robbie Williams says US women who initially reject his amorous advances often have a change of heart when they run his name through a search engine.

"I've since been told: 'That girl googled you because she knows who you are now.' So hurrah for googling!" says Williams. "Science got me laid."

Search and destroy

But what's good news for Robbie is becoming a headache for folk at Google HQ. The company's lawyers are trying to stamp out this sort of language.

In the US Google has mutated into a verb. Singletons will "google" a new boyfriend or girlfriend - run their name through a search engine - to check them out. People now talk about "googling" and "being googled".

On an episode of ER, shown on Channel 4 in the UK this week, colleagues of Dr Susan Lewis talked of "googling" her blind date.

And singer Robbie Williams says US women who initially reject his amorous advances often have a change of heart when they run his name through a search engine.

"I've since been told: 'That girl googled you because she knows who you are now.' So hurrah for googling!" says Williams. "Science got me laid."

Search and destroy

But what's good news for Robbie is becoming a headache for folk at Google HQ. The company's lawyers are trying to stamp out this sort of language.

Companies like Xerox, Kleenex, Portakabin and Rollerblade have teams of lawyers furiously firing off letters to media which mistakenly use their name in a generic sense.

It's all about protecting their brand, says Elizabeth Ward, a trade mark lawyer. "You have to see it in context of how much they spend on advertising. If you have a big, big brand such as Google you have to say what's that brand actually worth.

"Once it becomes just a word, it erodes the value of that brand."

For the likes of Google, Hoover's experience is a cautionary tale - it has essentially lost the exclusive right to its name.

The language police

"Its trade mark has not been removed," says Ms Ward, "but it seems that if Hoover were to contest its use as a generic then a court would remove it."

In fact, our language is littered with words that once used to be brands. Escalator, pogo, gunk and heroin are all examples, as is tabloid, which was originally registered by a drugs company in 1884 and came to mean "small tablet".

But the current obsession on building brand status has ushered in a new phase in language. So much so, that experts now fear trade mark lawyers are trying to police the otherwise natural evolution of the English diction.

Lexicographer Sidney I Landau, says dictionary publishers in the US are being bullied by lawyers to leave out words that are being freely spoken on the street.

"Dictionaries should reflect the use of words and their authors shouldn't be afraid to identify that and define it as generic," says Mr Landau.

Seize the moment

"In future the effect might be to mislead people by only giving the trade mark meaning. The effect is to suppress a range of fairly common words and therefore censor part of the English language."

Ken Storey of the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys rejects the idea his members are acting as censors on what we say.

"Everyone has the right to protect a trade mark," he says.

In Britain people may feel they want to seize the opportunity for free speech while they still can. The verb "to google" has yet to take off on this side of the Atlantic, but it seems Brits could use it with impunity for the time being, says Liz Ward.

That's because in Europe, at least, Google's trade mark is still pending.

quote:

Main Entry: google1
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: to search for information about a specific person through the Google search engine
Example: She googled her high school boyfriends.
Etymology: trademark Google
Usage: googling n

Source: Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)

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Op dinsdag 15 augustus 2006 22:57 schreef ondeugend het volgende:
Ik meen me te herinneren dat het woord op de nominatie stond op opgenomen te worden in de VanDale ? Of is dat inmiddels gebeurd al ?

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Op dinsdag 15 augustus 2006 22:59 schreef Rekkie het volgende:

[..]

In de onlineversie bestaat het woord Google niet eens [afbeelding]

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Op dinsdag 15 augustus 2006 22:57 schreef ondeugend het volgende:
Ik meen me te herinneren dat het woord op de nominatie stond op opgenomen te worden in de VanDale ? Of is dat inmiddels gebeurd al ?

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Op dinsdag 15 augustus 2006 23:01 schreef Wickedangel het volgende:
Wat een zeikerds
En ze waren toch al fout, in China

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Op dinsdag 15 augustus 2006 22:57 schreef ondeugend het volgende:
Ik meen me te herinneren dat het woord op de nominatie stond op opgenomen te worden in de VanDale ? Of is dat inmiddels gebeurd al ?

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Op dinsdag 15 augustus 2006 23:26 schreef Dagonet het volgende:

[..]

Het staat in ieder geval nog niet in de officiële woordenlijst, da's belangrijker dan VanDale.