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Conjugating the verb Google

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24 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
Volte
Tetraglot
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Switzerland
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 Message 17 of 24
04 July 2008 at 7:47am | IP Logged 
Tigresuisse wrote:
Ok but please don't call it a verb ... googelare sounds really horrible in Italian ... and even if I'm an original Ticinese girl, I have to say that in Ticino, Italian is not always as good as it should ... we have a lot of regionalisms and German influences ... an Italian person from Florence, Rome or Milan would not say "googelare" or whatever ....

or at least I hope soooooooo ....



No such luck - my Italian friends who live an hour into Italy from the boarder use these types of terms as well. And I agree - they do sound bad. It seems to be the nature of things that words that one has a reason to use frequently come into existence and then become shortened though, even if the result is not appealing.

Iversen wrote:

Btw. I found a notice (in Danish) about some uneasiness inside the company Google about this use of "to google" as a verb - apparently they don't like that it is being used for 'searching on the internet' in general, it is only OK when people in fact used Google. However I doubt that even Google can stop this generalized use of the word.


Yes - they're worried about losing their legal protection against trademark dilution; the term is 'genericized trademark'. They lose some legal protection if 'google' becomes a generic word, under American law; in at least some parts of Europe, I don't think that is the case.

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Hencke
Tetraglot
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 Message 18 of 24
04 July 2008 at 9:20am | IP Logged 
This is just natural language evolution taking place before our eyes here. As ever, resistance is futile. There is clearly a need for this new verb in English as well as in other languages, and natural evolution steps in and fills the gap.

There is no basis for claiming it is not a "real" verb. It is just so recent that it maybe hasn't stabilised, or ended up in all the dictionaries in most languages yet, especially at the more prestigious end of the spectrum. But in due course it will.

wwwebster has it in English though:

Main Entry:
    goo·gle Listen to the pronunciation of google
Pronunciation:
    \ˈgü-gəl\
Function:
    transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
    goo·gled; goo·gling Listen to the pronunciation of googling \-g(ə-)liŋ\
Usage:
    often capitalized
Etymology:
    Google, trademark for a search engine
Date:
    2001

: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web

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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
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 Message 19 of 24
04 July 2008 at 9:58am | IP Logged 
Hencke wrote:

wwwebster has it in English though:

Function:
    transitive verb
Usage:
    often capitalized


I have to quibble with wwwebster on these two points. It's ambitransitive, not transitive, and it's rarely capitalized outside of formal writing/journalism.



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neonqwerty
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United States
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 Message 20 of 24
04 July 2008 at 4:19pm | IP Logged 
Topsiderunner wrote:
This thread at wordreference has quite a few examples.


From that thread:

Quote:
"In French, as you guessed, you can use the neologism "googler" ( but not "faire google" ). There is also the noun : "le googlage" (the act of googling).

This words are very informal, "chercher sur Google" / "Une recherche sur Google" are far more used"
First, I don't even think that people would use "googler" informally. "Chercher sur Google" seems most plausible to me, but even then... I interact with English speakers and French speakers, and while English speakers sometimes do use "Google" as a verb, I never heard French speakers say anything other than "Une recherche par internet" (e.g.: a search by internet) or some minor variation thereof.

But just for fun:

Je google
Tu googles
Il/elle google
Nous googlons (fun to say!)
Vous googlez
Ils googlent
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San
Newbie
Zimbabwe
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 Message 21 of 24
04 July 2008 at 5:20pm | IP Logged 
Personally I've never heard that verb in Spanish, I've just read the conjugation list and it's hilarious, nobody I know would say that. It's just not that easy creating a new verb in this language. Of course it's different with adjectives, nouns and pseudo verbs made up of hacer/echar + noun/adverb. That's why the entry for echar in whatever dictionary seems endless, even though it is only the tip of the iceberg.
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goltrpoat
Triglot
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United States
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Speaks: Russian*, English, German
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 Message 22 of 24
06 July 2008 at 9:05pm | IP Logged 
I've seen "гуглить," "гугловать," "гуголить," etc. The first one sounds best, and appears to be in widest use by far. That having been said, Russian neologisms pop up like mushrooms, so it's hard to keep track.

In Persian, it's probably گوگلن (guglan), at least conjugating it produces reasonable looking hits: e.g., میگوگلم returns a page for what appears to be an off-Broadway play called "I google myself." I'm still quite new to the language, so hopefully someone will correct me if the above is wrong.

Incidentally, if you're wondering why Google returns an East Village play with Tim Cusack in response to a made-up Farsi word, I'm very much with ya.

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Kualidu
Triglot
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Mexico
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 Message 23 of 24
08 July 2008 at 12:10am | IP Logged 
First time I heard of "google" people would pronounce it as "gogle", "búscalo en el gogle", "lo encontré en el gogle". I don't know if this was mere out of fun or they just didn't know the English pronunciation.

We don't have a verb like "guglear" but we do tend to add a definite article and say "el google (gugel)".

"Búscalo en el gugel".


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Pavilion
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 Message 24 of 24
08 July 2008 at 4:02pm | IP Logged 
I dislike "google" used as a verb and much prefer terms such as "searching". I expect people thought the same about things like "hoover" as opposed to "vacuum cleaner" when that first entered everyday language.


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