I've been doing this since I started using Kagi since it sounds weird to say "I googled it and..." when I didn't actually use Google. I'm also not saying "I kagiied it" since half the people I talk to don't know what it is and for the rest it still sounds awkward so I've been going with variations for "I searched for it", "I did a web search", "I looked it up"...
While "google" may end up like the "kleenex" of web search, it seems more likely that people stop searching the web at all and just ask AI instead.
There's no good verb for "I asked ChatGPT", is there? "I slopped it"?
Say what you will, but using "google" is just the fastest way to say "search the web." Unless a better, equally convenient phrase comes along, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
That definitely puts it ahead of a lot of proposed replacements that end up being more syllables (which I firmly believe puts them in a disadvantage; I'm still looking for a reasonably terse generic word for "the person who delivers my mail" because "letter carrier" is a mouthful, and "mail person" just sounds like a weird way of referring to a man or boy, which is the opposite of what the generic term is for).
I'm still not convinced this is quite as ergonomic as it could be though because of a quirk of phrasing; instead of saying "I googled that", you'd need to say "I looked that up". As someone who often struggles to enunciate super well most of the time without my speech becoming slow to the point of tedious, it does still feel a bit more verbose because "googled" is such an awkward word that you can sort of pronounce it almost like 1.5 syllables by softening the second 'g' to produce something like "I goo-ulled that" and its still is intelligible. It still might be close enough that it can catch on, and I'm not at all opposed to it because of this minor inconvenience, but I do think that there are factors beyond a pure syllable count come into play even just in terms of linguistics rather than social convention.
there's some weird hang ups in English that you have to be cautious of, though.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe google it?" is pretty innocuous no matter the context.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe look it up?" can sound dismissive or condescending in some cases to some people's ear.
It's a weird quirk of English where being non-specific is like saying "I don't know, you figure it out", where being very specific is like saying "Here's the solution (that I would use)".
look up has the same number of syllables but it does not have quite the same semantic density, you can look something up without using a web search engine.
Which falls apart as soon as you actually use the word outside of a dictionary. Nobody says "to google". They say "I googled it", or "google it", the equivalents being "I looked it up" and "look it up", each introducing another word and syllable. "I looked up" and "look up" don't work. It's embarrassing somebody could write a suggestion like this without applying 3 entire seconds of thought to it.
I can't think how anyone is going to be confused and think I want them to check the bins or something, but maybe we search for different things on the web.
My kids and their friends say “search it up”. I have no idea if that’s representative of the tween/teen population. But google as a verb will likely die on its own. It’s been a while since I’ve xeroxed anything.
They are actively transforming it into "ask Gemini" though. Which for me is often wrong. The organic search results are farther down, and if a lucrative term...you have to scroll past ads also. And the quality is not what it once was.
I have no problem with this person choosing to use different language to describe this.
But I do have a problem generally with attempts to impose language changes on others (in the case of this post you only see that tendency in the title).
This sort of linguistic prescriptivism seems in vogue for political reasons lately, most saliently in the hordes of people who insist that you must not use natural anthropomorphic language when talking about LLMs, but that’s far from the only political attempt to control language we’ve seen recently. Let people talk how they want! Langauage is an evolving thing that shouldn’t be controlled by scolds!
Around here "google it" has been replaced by "spørg botten" which means "ask the bot" or "spørg GPT". I've been putting an effort into saying "look it up" and stuff like it instead of "google it" for a couple of years now. Looks like it'll probably be wasted effort soon though.
Brave search is the best alternative to Google. They have an independent index and good UI. Very rarely do I switch to another engine. Brave does well at surfacing forum threads and the AI summary has been surprisingly good for a while.
It pains me that DuckDuckGo has the name that it has, since you can't even pretend to want to use that as a verb. You can use generic terms, and that's what I tend to do (usually just 'look it up (on the web)', alternativly 'search the web'), but there's good reason google entered the common lexicon and functionally replaced those terms, and finding a replacement that is as good is very, very hard.
I have used DuckDuckGo for many years, and sadly over 75% of the time I find myself adding !g to the search to get the much better Google result. I'm not sure why I still bother with DuckDuckGo.
I have no idea who owns the Kleenex and Saran Wrap brands and what they are like (I know it's a quick internet search away ;)), but they aren't using their products to track my every move, so it doesn't feel like it's as much of a problem.
companies are stupid then, because it's obviously good for them. You're maybe thinking about how trademark lawyers pursue use of it but that's for tactical reasons not because it isn't great marketing
Losing a trademark to a generic word can make marketing a lot harder, though. A company often needs a new brand then, because everyone else can use their old brand in the marketplace.
It would be fascinating for Alphabet to lose Google the brand to being a generic word. (To be fair, it is something that maybe should have happened already.) Kagi or DDG or someone could use a domain like google.new or google.tech to easily retrain old habits of some users. What is Alphabet going to do in that case? If Google is no longer a trademark but a generic word, do they focus on having the "Alphabet Brand Google" or "The Original Google, by Alphabet"? Either way, that's harder to market and maybe easier to build a fresh brand than fight the generic terminology.
Someone tried to make them lose the trademark. They kept it in court because people literally mean search on Google when they say Google. They don't mean search in general. And that's fair, I don't say Google as a verb now that I use Kagi for search.
Even if this was true (it's not), it wouldn't make any difference to my actions. "What's good for GM is good for America" was false 70 years ago and has not become any less false in the intervening period.
Maybe you could argue that we'd be better off with big tech, but foreign state actors have absolutely destroyed political discourse in the US. It's the reason why we all distrust each other and are sliding into autocracy.
Don't listen to them, they're not your friends. And if you listen to enough motivated reasoning, you'll lose track of what's true and what's not.
I think this is focusing entirely on the wrong thing.
Non-Mac computers are still called "PC's", but IBM has nothing to gain from this. Similarly, copy machines at least in my country are called "Xerox's" but it's very rarely a machine from the Xerox company.
If you want to de-throne Google, you cannot do so by policing language. You have to build a better search (not more private! better!).
I have some triggers that make me stop reading or watching something. Using "google" as a verb is one of them. I perceive people doing that as blindly following a sort of cult, and I am not interested to learn anything from this kind of people.
Searching is dying. I mostly hear "ask Claude/ChatGPT" these days. Googling will most of the time result in wall of slop on the first page unless you search with the exact source or site hint.
Searching for webpages, at least on google, have died like 10 years ago. Even if you knew the exact domain and words, it wouldn't be able to find it somehow. Always pushing "fresh results", changing your words (quotes or not), translating languages, etc... I tried to be smart and ruined everything that was good about it. On top of that web changed a lot and loads of content moved to private platforms. And now "AI".
While "google" may end up like the "kleenex" of web search, it seems more likely that people stop searching the web at all and just ask AI instead.
There's no good verb for "I asked ChatGPT", is there? "I slopped it"?
edit: maybe I'll bring back "bing it" since nobody would actually assume you're using bing for it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrEHTd_3vD0
I'm still not convinced this is quite as ergonomic as it could be though because of a quirk of phrasing; instead of saying "I googled that", you'd need to say "I looked that up". As someone who often struggles to enunciate super well most of the time without my speech becoming slow to the point of tedious, it does still feel a bit more verbose because "googled" is such an awkward word that you can sort of pronounce it almost like 1.5 syllables by softening the second 'g' to produce something like "I goo-ulled that" and its still is intelligible. It still might be close enough that it can catch on, and I'm not at all opposed to it because of this minor inconvenience, but I do think that there are factors beyond a pure syllable count come into play even just in terms of linguistics rather than social convention.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe google it?" is pretty innocuous no matter the context.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe look it up?" can sound dismissive or condescending in some cases to some people's ear.
It's a weird quirk of English where being non-specific is like saying "I don't know, you figure it out", where being very specific is like saying "Here's the solution (that I would use)".
I can't think how anyone is going to be confused and think I want them to check the bins or something, but maybe we search for different things on the web.
So Google is polluting what it means anyway.
But I do have a problem generally with attempts to impose language changes on others (in the case of this post you only see that tendency in the title).
This sort of linguistic prescriptivism seems in vogue for political reasons lately, most saliently in the hordes of people who insist that you must not use natural anthropomorphic language when talking about LLMs, but that’s far from the only political attempt to control language we’ve seen recently. Let people talk how they want! Langauage is an evolving thing that shouldn’t be controlled by scolds!
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/search-engines/
Google Photos -> Immich (better)
Google Search -> Claude (better)
Google Calendar -> Apple Calendar (better)
Google Chrome -> Safari or Firefox - someone please make a basic browser that can handle 30 tabs without needing gigs of memory
Google Maps -> .... I've been seeing if MapQuest is "good enough"
GMail -> .... I think Fastmail is "good enough" - GMail's bells and whistles aren't as important anymore
It pains me that DuckDuckGo has the name that it has, since you can't even pretend to want to use that as a verb. You can use generic terms, and that's what I tend to do (usually just 'look it up (on the web)', alternativly 'search the web'), but there's good reason google entered the common lexicon and functionally replaced those terms, and finding a replacement that is as good is very, very hard.
"DDG it" rolls off the tongue
It's also way past time to ditch Google (Noun), though that's an even harder sell. But, you should still do it.
It would be fascinating for Alphabet to lose Google the brand to being a generic word. (To be fair, it is something that maybe should have happened already.) Kagi or DDG or someone could use a domain like google.new or google.tech to easily retrain old habits of some users. What is Alphabet going to do in that case? If Google is no longer a trademark but a generic word, do they focus on having the "Alphabet Brand Google" or "The Original Google, by Alphabet"? Either way, that's harder to market and maybe easier to build a fresh brand than fight the generic terminology.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3006486.stm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21944834
its okay to not look but its weird to think other people don't.
This was triggered by my mother Googling something on Bing.
Well... thanks?
Don't listen to them, they're not your friends. And if you listen to enough motivated reasoning, you'll lose track of what's true and what's not.
Non-Mac computers are still called "PC's", but IBM has nothing to gain from this. Similarly, copy machines at least in my country are called "Xerox's" but it's very rarely a machine from the Xerox company.
If you want to de-throne Google, you cannot do so by policing language. You have to build a better search (not more private! better!).