The term 'google' does a good job of saying 'internet search' with far fewer letters, and with much more uniqueness. That alone helped in the battle with 'Dog Pile' and Alta Vista.
I've never got into turning business names into verbs, and I am from the generation that heavily used "Google it".
Nowadays, I have colleagues suggest to "Ask Claude/ChatGPT". I want to collaborate and build on the team experience, not ask a system that can hallucinate an answer!
Can you give an example of a question that you would google, but your colleagues would "Ask Claude" and they get a hallucination but you get the right answer?
Pretty much anything to do with transportation routes — it keeps telling me to take a non-existent train line, or a bus that isn’t on the schedule it thinks, or something like that.
The local young person here likes to say, "search it up!"
Which I find amusing for reasons not completely understood. Either way, better than giving free advertising to a multinational spying firm.
Maybe "google it" can refer to the uglified nature of English usage by conflating an activity with a morally ambiguous entity who eventually and inevitably enshittifies it.
I still say "Google it", but I don't use Google for search anymore -- haven't for almost two years, ever since I started subscribing to Kagi. If you're busting my ass about how I use "Google" as a verb, and you're still actually using Google to search, you can help yourself to a heaping serving of Shut The ** Up.
"google it" does have delicious ironic potential starting, now.
I agree, that's why I keep it fresh with the kiddos by using the more hep "give it to Ask Jeeves" or "run it through gopher".
But since I also like to quack it with Duck Duck Go, daddy-o, I sometimes just say " I used a search engine..."
The term 'google' does a good job of saying 'internet search' with far fewer letters, and with much more uniqueness. That alone helped in the battle with 'Dog Pile' and Alta Vista.
I've never got into turning business names into verbs, and I am from the generation that heavily used "Google it".
Nowadays, I have colleagues suggest to "Ask Claude/ChatGPT". I want to collaborate and build on the team experience, not ask a system that can hallucinate an answer!
Can you give an example of a question that you would google, but your colleagues would "Ask Claude" and they get a hallucination but you get the right answer?
Pretty much anything to do with transportation routes — it keeps telling me to take a non-existent train line, or a bus that isn’t on the schedule it thinks, or something like that.
"We hallucinate our answers exclusively in-house, go to the office fridge and grab some shrooms"
The local young person here likes to say, "search it up!" Which I find amusing for reasons not completely understood. Either way, better than giving free advertising to a multinational spying firm.
Yes, this is the term my youngins use too!
I just skip the middle men at this point and tell people “open up your third eye”
Start the reactor, free Mars.
Didn't ask, don't care.
This is called antonomasia.
edit: is someone at meta/openai trying to age-shame me for using it?
I've never heard of "Google it". I've only ever said "Input it to a web search engine".
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/magazine/google-it-search...
Thank god. Verbing corporate nouns needs to die.
I quietly like it because it erodes a company's ability to strong-arm via trademarks if it's part of common parlance.
Maybe "google it" can refer to the uglified nature of English usage by conflating an activity with a morally ambiguous entity who eventually and inevitably enshittifies it.
So yeah, it got Googled.
"ask Jeeves"
Alta Vista It
https://archive.is/Ucaxb No paywall
That's piracy.
RTFM
RAFB
And?
I still say "Google it", but I don't use Google for search anymore -- haven't for almost two years, ever since I started subscribing to Kagi. If you're busting my ass about how I use "Google" as a verb, and you're still actually using Google to search, you can help yourself to a heaping serving of Shut The ** Up.
lmgtfy