Saying 'Google It' Makes You Sound Old

20 pointsposted 12 hours ago
by bookofjoe
(nytimes.com)

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!

user

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”

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.

shitter

10 hours ago

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

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

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.