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To google or to Google, that is the question

Brian M. [PersonRank 10]

Sunday, July 9, 2006
17 years ago4,809 views

Dictionary wars, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) v. Mirriam Webster's (MW) Dictionary

Listen also (sound clips from MW):
http://cougar.eb.com/soundc11/g/googl01v.wav
http://cougar.eb.com/soundc11/g/googl02v.wav

OED:
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google, v.
Cricket.
intr. Of the ball: to have a ‘googly’ break and swerve. Of the bowler; to bowl a googly or googlies; also (trans.), to give a googly break to (a ball). Hence {sm}googler, a googly bowler.
1907 Badminton Mag. Sept. 289 The googlies that do not google. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 5 July 7/4 Mr. Lockhart, having ‘googled’ to no purpose from the ‘nursery’ end. 1923 Daily Mail 9 July 11 In R. H. Bettington they have a googler who might triumph over the best of wickets. 1928 Daily Tel. 12 June 19/2 Constantine..was out to a semi-yorker, which also ‘googled’. 1930 Ibid. 25 Apr. 8/5 Grimmett..can spin the ball and google it.
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Google, v.
1. intr. To use the Google search engine to find information on the Internet.
1999 Re: Hi Guys! in alt.fan.british-accent (Usenet newsgroup) 10 Oct., Has anyone Googled? www.google.com Ver ver [sic] clean and fast. 2003 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 14 Sept. (Seven Days section) 7/3 You can google all you want and there's nothing there on them. 2004 U.S. News & World Report 14 June 49/2 The couple found themselves Googling for a new place to live.
2. trans. To search for information about (a person or thing) using the Google search engine.
2000 Re: $Emergency_Number in NYC in alt.sysadmin.recovery (Usenet newsgroup) 10 Jan., I've googled some keywords, and it came up with some other .edu text. 2001 N.Y. Times 11 Mar. III. 12/3, I met this woman last night at a party and I came right home and googled her. 2005 ‘BELLE DE JOUR’ Intimate Adventures of London Call Girl 115 Obsessing over the details, including Googling his name every few hours? Too right I did.
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MW:
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Main Entry: goo·gle
Pronunciation: 'gü-g&l
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): goo·gled; goo·gling /-g(&-) li[ng]/
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: Google, trademark for a search engine
: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web

Misc Yahoo stuff:
(Can you pronounce Yahoo?): http://cougar.eb.com/soundc11/y/yahoo002.wav
(Yahooism?): http://cougar.eb.com/soundc11/y/yahooi01.wav

MW:
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Main Entry: 1ya·hoo
Pronunciation: 'yA-(")hü, 'yä-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural yahoos
1 capitalized : a member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans
2 [influenced by 2yahoo] : a boorish, crass, or stupid person
- ya·hoo·ism /-"i-z&m/ noun

OED:
----------------------------
yahoo, n.
1. A name invented by Swift in Gulliver's Travels for an imaginary race of brutes having the form of men; hence transf. and allusively, a human being of a degraded or bestial type. (Cf. HOUYHNHNM.) Freq. in mod. use, a person lacking cultivation or sensibility, a philistine; a lout, a hooligan.

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