Saying 'Google It' Makes You Sound Old

(nytimes.com)

20 points | by bookofjoe 12 hours ago ago

38 comments

  • newsomix9xl 11 hours ago

    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..."

  • mixmastamyk 12 hours ago

    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.

    • lightandlight 8 hours ago

      Yeah, I used to Google things until Google went to shit. Now I use Kagi, but it doesn't sound like a verb. I'll gladly add "search [it] up" to my lexicon :)

    • 2cynykyl 10 hours ago

      Yes, this is the term my youngins use too!

    • 12 hours ago
      [deleted]
  • dnemmers 11 hours ago

    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.

  • shahedshah 11 hours ago

    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!

    • JacobAsmuth 10 hours ago

      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?

      • helpfulclippy 9 hours ago

        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.

    • Xorakios 7 hours ago

      Probably most people don't Xerox things or Fotomat pictures, but still ask for a Kleenex, or use a Thermos, Band-aid, Flip-phone, Chapstick or Post-it

    • rf15 11 hours ago

      "We hallucinate our answers exclusively in-house, go to the office fridge and grab some shrooms"

  • olivierestsage 11 hours ago

    I just skip the middle men at this point and tell people “open up your third eye”

  • bookofjoe 12 hours ago
  • wtk 10 hours ago

    This is called antonomasia.

    edit: is someone at meta/openai trying to age-shame me for using it?

  • noman-land 7 hours ago

    All you have to do is say you're going to "Bing it" and everyone in the room laughs.

  • chomp 12 hours ago

    Thank god. Verbing corporate nouns needs to die.

    • pachouli-please 11 hours ago

      I quietly like it because it erodes a company's ability to strong-arm via trademarks if it's part of common parlance.

    • rz2k 8 hours ago

      Zip it!

    • newsomix9xl 11 hours ago

      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.

  • rickcarlino 6 hours ago

    I need to tell my IRC friends ASAP.

  • Whoppertime 8 hours ago

    After cutting your finger do you ask for a bandaid or an Adhesive Medical Strip? There's a benefit to turning company names into Nouns or Verbs

    • ButlerianJihad 8 hours ago

      150 years ago, I may have asked for a bandage or first aid. Perhaps those terms helped give an idea to the marketing team.

      Being more accustomed to medical terms now, sometimes I call it a “dressing” which is also two syllables.

      “Adhesive Medical Strip” sounds one of those database categories someone invented for a store or clinic, once Band-Aid had competitors.

  • compiler-devel 12 hours ago

    Didn't ask, don't care.

  • shitter 10 hours ago

    I've never heard of "Google it". I've only ever said "Input it to a web search engine".

  • 1bpp 12 hours ago
  • crazybonkersai 2 hours ago

    In Finnish there is an acronym KVG (katso vittu Googlesta) which stands roughly for Look up on the fucking Google. I wonder what will replace it in the age of LLMs

  • variadix 11 hours ago

    RTFM

  • dlcarrier 10 hours ago

    Alta Vista It

  • IllegalPrimes 8 hours ago

    Duck it

  • nc55g3g 7 hours ago

    how about saying AI it

  • metalman 9 hours ago

    "google it" does have delicious ironic potential starting, now.

  • biglyburrito 10 hours ago

    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.

  • monkpit 12 hours ago

    lmgtfy

  • Simulacra 9 hours ago

    "ask Jeeves"