If 'google' is (officially) a verb, then Google is in trouble!
(When a company becomes so successful that its name is synonymous with the general product, the company becomes in danger of losing its trademark. One common marker for this phenomenon is whether the company's name has become a valid verb--for example, you can 'xerox' something on another company's copier. Admittedly, the idea of someone 'googling' something on, say, Alta Vista is somewhat laughable because Google is commonly understood the best search engine out there by a wide margin. Also I was hoping to just follow up my comment with a link to the Wikipedia article for copyright extinction, but surprisingly, they do not have one...)
AP is on Twitter - I'm not. I found it through another news source, but since all the reportage cited the Tweet, I figured I'd just go to the source.
Google actually made fun of the verbing and copyright extinction on April 1st, when they pretended to be changing to "Topeka" or whatever it was. There were a long list of things to say, including a big red X next to "I topeka'd him on Altavista."
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WELCOME TO 2010, PEOPLE.
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(When a company becomes so successful that its name is synonymous with the general product, the company becomes in danger of losing its trademark. One common marker for this phenomenon is whether the company's name has become a valid verb--for example, you can 'xerox' something on another company's copier. Admittedly, the idea of someone 'googling' something on, say, Alta Vista is somewhat laughable because Google is commonly understood the best search engine out there by a wide margin. Also I was hoping to just follow up my comment with a link to the Wikipedia article for copyright extinction, but surprisingly, they do not have one...)
Also, the APA stylebook is on Twitter?
Also, YOU are on Twitter?
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Google actually made fun of the verbing and copyright extinction on April 1st, when they pretended to be changing to "Topeka" or whatever it was. There were a long list of things to say, including a big red X next to "I topeka'd him on Altavista."
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