Being Googled

Baker, John JMB at STRADLEY.COM
Tue Nov 5 01:00:18 UTC 2002


        I have no doubt that the cartoon referred to the use of the Google search engine to gather information.  The earliest reference I've seen is from The Globe and Mail, Mar. 18, 2000:  >>I've just spent an afternoon Googling around the net (www.google.dom, a splendid search engine) . . . .<<  Unrelated full articles on Googling, meaning specifically the use of Google to gather information on potential romantic partners, were published in the New York Observer and The Statesman on January 15, 2001.

        Google asserts that its name is a play on the word googol.  That may be true in part, but I believe it's also based on the existing verb "google" (not in OED), which I take to be a variation on the verb "goggle" (to stare with wide and bulging eyes).  The earliest I've seen is in the Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1986:  >>Here, upstairs in Bea Dollar's little office, baby Sean is googling and his teen-age mom is asking if she can get married.<<

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Gilbert [mailto:susandgilbert at MSN.COM]
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2002 7:23 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Being Googled


When did being "Googled" become part of our lexicon?
New Yorker cartoon features two men at a bar and one shudders and exclaims :
"Whew! I feel like I have just been "Googled."

Susan Dean Gilbert
susandgilbert at msn.comGet more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com



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