In 1998 I first used Google. At the time they were looking for a technical writer, and I almost applied for the job. But I didn’t. Instead of living in the Bahamas and writing my memoirs I’m living in Prague and writing for slovo dne. The first time I heard „google“ used as a verb I thought it was humorous. Now it is normal, not only in English but Czech too. It is a little different in Czech, because you „vygůglovat“ something, but is otherwise used the same way. In fact, you can gůglovat „Fred’s Czech Mate“ and you’ll be right back here at the wonderful wacky slovo dne web site.
(from guest professor Vladislav Skalicka)
What a coincidence, today’s Wulffmorgenthaler is also about google (and it’s darker moments):
http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com/thestrip.asp?cDay=22&cMonth=2&cYear=2006
Oh yes! I’ve heard it for thousand times in my life in czech- „vygůglovat“ even in other languages e.g. in german it’s „googlen“(ich google,du googlest,..) .It this case I’m wondering why is still used „google search“ in google web page and not only sufficient „google“ 😉
A co takhle „Vygůglit“?
Yes. That’s a good question. Why is it „guglovat“ and not „guglit“? Oh, the wonderful Czech language…
The ending -ovat is the one generally used with verbs borrowed from other languages.
Co takhle:
googlo
googlas
googlat
googlamus
googlatis
googlant
Pak mame jeste podobny vyraz, spis pejorativnejsi povahy, VYGOLGOVAT (od Golgo Fabiano) 🙂
Hanácky:
Já su blbé jako Doly Bástr, já vim hovno, mosim si to veguglovat.
Oprava po konzultaci s rodilým mluvčím: já so blbé jak Doly…
If you vygůglovat the term „miserable failure“ in Czech, would you get information about Vaclav Klaus, similar to this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=miserable+failure&btnG=Google+Search
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb
A Google bomb or Google washer is a certain attempt to influence the ranking of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine. Due to the way that Google’s PageRank algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page all use consistent anchor text. A Google bomb is created if a large number of sites link to the page in this manner. Google bomb is used both as a verb and a noun.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserable_failure
Miserable failure and translations is a term that became an Internet phenomenon when it was reported that the first result for it on Google was the official biography of U.S. President George W. Bush. It has since become one of the most famous Google bombs. Bush’s biography also appears as the first result on Google for the term failure.