BS: To Google is copyrighted!

Subject: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:09 PM

Paul McFedries, proprietor of the website www.wordspy.com which defines new words coming into the language, listed the verb, "to google." Rose Hagan, trademark counsel for "Google," asked McFedries to delete the word and implied that McFedries was violating the "Google" trademark.
He was able to satisfy the counsel by adding a note to his definition that "Google' and its forms were © by "Google."
(Remember the old days, when Kodak was happy to have "Kodak" used for all cameras, etc.?)

Word Spy is interesting and amusing to anyone who likes words: Word Spy
To go directly to the definition of "to google": google

Words recently defined in Word Spy include hand-me-up, studentification, militainment and unilateral (an independent journalist).

The article was carried in the Calgary Herald, Apr. 28, 2003, e-Business section, under the title "King of the Web? ...or cybermeanie, by Christopher Shulgan, Canwest News Service. I could not find the article on the Calgary Herald website.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:12 PM

Shouldn't that read

"To Goodle is copywritten"

???

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: MMario
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:19 PM

actually should read "Google is trademarked"

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:22 PM

Goodle? Goodle? Okay Clinton, whatever you say........THEY say it can "make a better life"..........

Check it out...... Goodle.com

Spaw.....LOL

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:31 PM

Strikes me they'd be on a loser if they tried to stop people using the word.

So far I haven't found another search engien which is better than Google, but when I do, I'll use that for googling, and probably still call it by thta word. The same way I use a Dyson when I want to hoover the floor, and the biro I use to write things isn't.

And I don't have a water closet built by Thomas Crapper either, but...

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:38 PM

I should have written copyright, minus the ed. Copywritten? Not is Webster's Collegiate. Now Word Spy may admit both copyrighted and copywritten.

But shouldn't one who prepares copyrights be called a copywright?

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:45 PM

Q -

Copywright wrights copies. One who wrights copyrights would need to be a copyrightwright.(?)

John

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:50 PM

Or a copywriter, er...no that would be adverts...how about a copyrighter?**bg**

It seems googling has replaced diddling for many folk and they'd be happy to cash in on such a phenomena...

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 01:53 PM

John, you are right, I bow to your superior wordwright skills.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 02:00 PM

I dunno' kat.....I'd prefer to be diddled rather than googled myself......

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 02:02 PM

Today's word in Word Spy: normal accident.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 02:07 PM

That sounds like an oxymoron, Q. Thanks for the link, though, i love word thingies!

Heya, Sapw, maybe it takes an oxymoron to prefer googling?

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 02:13 PM

Of course, the verb to google was in dictionaries long before the Internet was invented. It's a cricketing term. [Ety. dub.]

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 02:27 PM

Yeah Malcolm but nobody knew it since there are only 17 people in the entire world who understand Cricket...(:<))

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 03:38 PM

Google (cricket) only appears in ethnic (English) dictionaries. And in the song Barney Google- with your goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 03:59 PM

What hath copy wrought?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 04:17 PM

Oh, copy rot! That's what most of the drivel one sees in ads is these days!

Isn't google a mathematical term, too, for infinite number or something?

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 06:07 PM

I believe that's "googol".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Amos
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 06:53 PM

Quite so -- a googol is a 1 with a ridiculous number of zeros after it. A google is a page with a ridiculous number of hits on it.

The sad truth, which was learned by Xerox, is that copyright cannot prevent the ebb and flow of language, and it is just their bad luck if they don't like it. The use of a search engine -- a whole new technology of considerable importance -- is going to have an easy popular verb, and google is it. Dictionary keepers simply document popular usage; they can't infringe on copyright legally, IMO, because all they are doing is describing language and its usages.

A

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 08:38 PM

I have to agree with MMario, and I'm rather surprised that the google "legal eagle" didn't insist on the ® or TM notation rather than the © thing.

Copyright generally applies to "whole ideas," and it's rather difficult to defend copyright of a "name" by itself, whereas this does appear to be a perfectly sound example of something that could be a "trademark." The protection afforded trademarks is actually, in some respects, much stronger than for "mere" copyright.

John

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 09:28 PM

My use of the word copyright was the result of sloppy thinking and even poorer comprehension of what I read. If you read the definition of google in Word Spy (link above), "google" is protected by trademark. Apologies.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 10:03 PM

Q -

So maybe we don't have to ask the lawyer to prove his credentials?

A subtle distinction for most of us, but rather important if you're trying to establish a proprietary "right" of either kind.

Think how short our threads might be if we all spoke "legal."

John

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 10:15 PM

What's an "ethnic (English)" dictionary? A non-American one? I am puzzled. Mind you, I can't blame anyone for not understanding cricketing terminology (I suspect that 17 is an over-estimate). Although I was forced to play it when young, I never had the slightest idea what was going on, particularly after the first concussion.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 10:25 PM

Once more into the breach, dear friends, I leap; to tell you something most of you probably know. Kleenex had been fighting, for most of my life, to prevent their brand name from becomming generic. What they fear is a world in which, if you ask some one to get you a box of Kleenex, That persom will think you want any generic nose wipe rather than Kleenex brand Tissues.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 11:00 PM

I always though the OED was rather "ethnic (English)." Of course, that was when I was younger and hadn't learned that it's not nice to laugh at people who "talk funny."

There are several different "Dictionary of <insert category> Slang" and of jargon, idiom, etc. in the US market, and I would presume that there must be equivalents in the Brit. trade. British slang, or localized British (ethnic?) terminologies, would be useless here, since few of us can understand their "straight" talk with any real clarity.

Surely, if at least 17 people understand cricket, there must be a rule book - unless it's still the tradition that all disputes can be settled (or satisfactorily escalated) with a pint? That's more than enough people to found(er) an international association of... almost anything.

John

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 11:22 PM

Malcolm, the ethnic was tongue in cheek. Nowadays everything has become ethnic, food, music, literature, etc. Blood pudding, kippers and steak and kidney pie are considered ethnic English foods. Why not the OED, as JohninKansas suggests? It certainly has a different flavor from the American Webster's Collegiate, Webster's International, etc.

I think the whole "ethnic' nonsense was dreamed up (drempt up) to sell us on something exotic in order to make money on our attempts to be different from the people next door who stick with eggs and bacon or bangers and mash.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: GUEST,Dreaded Guest
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 11:47 PM

Sony is patenting the term 'Shock and Awe'. Corporate fascism in America now extends to our whore of a President being fed lines by his speechwriters which will later be used to market military action figures, I guess. Or no, it's a videogame Sony is developing. 'Shock and Awe'. Pitiful.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Amos
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:14 AM

Well, I propose to design a new board game based on little pieces that move around a series of colored squares and interact based on the luck of the draw from a stack of little cards -- each card will have an expletive neatly printed on it! Pooey!! Rats!! Darn!    Just the clean ones, mind you - anything from Shucks to Pfui to Nuts or Baloney!.

I'm aiming to call it "Awk! and Pshaw!!". Whatya think, guys?


Guys?.....guys?....aw...hell.... back to the ol' drawing boartd!


:>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 09:22 AM

I was not aware that "google" as a verb had leapt the boundary between the Google search engine and search engines in general. I've used google-as-verb to refer to searching via Google, but would not use it to refer to searching via another search engine. But then again, I rarely use any other search engines anyway.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: MMario
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 09:32 AM

I've heard it used. I think it certainly sound better then "I yahooed" - which I have also heard people use.

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 10:58 AM

Does anyone get the comic "Get Fuzzy" in their Sunday paper? This last Sunday, the evil cat said, "You can wordify anything if you just verb it."

Subject: RE: BS: To Google is copyrighted!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Apr 03 - 12:29 PM

So the word verb (a thing, a part of speech) went from being a noun to being a verb just then? :)

SRS