Google Verbed

As the linguist said to the lawyer…

Lawyer: Google wants to bring a case against anyone who uses Google as a verb.

Linguist: I understand your client’s concern that their brand is being eroded.

Lawyer: But they own the brand. They trademarked it.

Linguist: Could I ask where google got the name from?

Lawyer: It means a lot. From Googol.

Linguist: Did the inventor of “googolplex” sue Google? And they spelt it wrong. G-o-o-g-l-e. They want to patent a spelling mistake?

Lawyer: This is a serious legal issue.

Linguist: I’m not much help to you as an expert witness, I’m afraid. You can’t legislate against popular taste in language use. Xerox tried and failed. Hoover tried and failed. The French tried to outlaw English and failed. Besides, you can’t stop people googling. Google is now an eponym.

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Voice-over

Google is a verb derived from a proper noun.

google (transitive verb)

googling (present continuous)

googled (simple past)

was googled (past passive)

Larry Page and Sergey Brin themselves used “google” as a verb as far back as 1998.

But google isn’t an adverb. (googily). Not yet. See the language police and lawyers pounce then.

Short film on Google at

http://youtu.be/Tti_E-cd7Z8

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FaceBook + Google = 1984 False analogy?

f.b + g = 1984

A darkened room, whispering…

Julia: It’s getting like 1984.

Winston: What is?

Julia: FaceBook collecting all your private data and putting it online.

Winston: False analogy. You volunteer your private information to FaceBook. Orwell’s Big Brother was watching you.

Julia: Well how about Google then? It watches where you go and collects that information without asking.

Winston: False analogy again. Orwell’s Big Brother used the data to control the citizens. Google sells your information.

Julia: It still feels like 1984 with all the spying going on.

Winston: I will say this though. FaceBook and Google add up to something like 1984. It’s a partial analogy.

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Voice-over

An analogy compares A with B and finds that they share features.

A false analogy is one where A and B may superficially share features but underneath there is little relevance or only a few shared features.

Hillary Clinton commented at the UN on the recent civil unrest in Syria, that to compare Syria to Libya was a “false analogy.”

Valid analogies may range from strong through partial to weak. Winston’s reasoning that two false analogies add up to a partial analogy is intriguing. It has an instinctive validity.

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If you Google Apple

Tim and Larry discuss the health of Steve Jobs vs Sergey Brin.

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Tim: We just don’t know. He’s an extrovert on stage, a performer, but when it comes to private issues like health, he plays his cards very close to his chest.

Larry: The worse it gets, the less he says?

Tim? Maybe. Maybe so.

Larry: Not in denial?

Tim: Who knows? Could be that. Could be his doctors don’t even know. Could be…

Larry: Unlike Sergey: Quiet guy. Says very little but then finds he might, might, I stress, have a gene predisposing him to Parkinson’s Disease. So what does he do? Comes out with it right there on his blog. Says it straight off.

Tim: Difference is, Steve’s unwell, and Sergey’s in great shape. Steve faces problems right now. Sergey may have years.

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Voice-over

Disclosure of information. Two different approaches. Steve’s approach is to control it, keep it under wraps until it can’t be contained any longer. Sergey’s approach is to come right out and say it.

Though, as Tim suggests, you may react to a present crisis differently to a future hypothetical scenario.

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Is Google making us stupid?

Carl challenges Jerry in his spending too much time on the Internet.

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Carl: And there’s a study been done that shows you young people have no concentration, you don’t have the attention span to finish a book.

Jerry: A study, huh?

Carl: A scientific study, mind you.

Jerry: Hmm.

Carl: And you know why? It’s because of Google. You go hop, hop, hop all over the place and haven’t the patience to pursue an argument to its logical concussion.

Jerry: I think you mean conclusion.

Carl: That’s what I said.

Jerry: Not so sure. Last night I was watching an old documentary, The Living Planet, and I got interested in lichens and cobras and who made it, David Attenborough, so I googled away and found his brother Richard Attenborough who directed Ghandi and pretty soon I felt I’d caught up on a lot of stuff.

Carl: You see, a whole of lot unrelated facts.

Jerry: Well twenty years ago, I’d have gone to sleep watching the documentary and finding out all that stuff would have needed a trip to the library and I wouldn’t have had time to go and I wouldn’t therefore have followed up and deepened and widened what I learned from the documentary.

Carl: Still say you only get trivia from Google.

Jerry: Depends. I can give other studies that show young doctors get a broader knowledge from Internet delivered materials with lots of links than long linear lectures. It’s a different generation and they learn differently.

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Voiceover

An article entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" has appeared in the July August 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly written by Nicholas Carr. It’s worth reading despite its conspiracy-theory flavor, it’s also an intriguing idea, although as the author cautions, “anecdotes alone don’t prove much.”

And that is how many such discussions, like those Carl and Jerry are engaging in, progress. Anecdote countered with anecdote.

Data is of course crucial but the hypotheses driving such studies are preceded by and formulated through introspection. It all begins with anecdotes.

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