Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Conjugation?

“I googled [blank].”

Okay. But what if one uses DuckDuckGo?

“I duckduckgo-ed [blank]”?

“I duckduckwent [blank]”?

“I searched for [blank] with DuckDuckGo” is too prolix for this twenty-first century. But still I’ll go with DuckDuckGo.

comments: 4

Anonymous said...

Google should be very careful about letting people use Google which is trademarked as a verb. I did find a 2013 article about it: https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/no-googling-says-google-unless-you-really-mean-it-1C9078566

But more recent articles say that if you say "I googled it" it means you used the Google search engine.

But I don't use Google --definitely a DuckDuckGo person! So I just say, "a search" or "I searched" but tend to avoid the use of "Google!"

Kirsten

Michael Leddy said...

As with “Scotch tape” and such, I think language finds its way.

I had a student years ago who liked to collect generic names for trademarked names: “transparent tape,” “petroleum jelly,” etc.

Fresca said...

MICHAEL: Now I want to start using the descriptive names for things we usually use trademark names for. But what the heck is the full generic name for Kleenex, etc?
("Tissue", I guess--but is there more to it?)
I must do research.

Michael Leddy said...

Facial tissue! On your grocer’s shelf next to the toasted oat cereal.