Say what you will, but using "google" is just the fastest way to say "search the web." Unless a better, equally convenient phrase comes along, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
look up has the same number of syllables but it does not have quite the same semantic density, you can look something up without using a web search engine.
there's some weird hang ups in English that you have to be cautious of, though.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe google it?" is pretty innocuous no matter the context.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe look it up?" can sound dismissive or condescending in some cases to some people's ear.
It's a weird quirk of English where being non-specific is like saying "I don't know, you figure it out", where being very specific is like saying "Here's the solution (that I would use)".
That definitely puts it ahead of a lot of proposed replacements that end up being more syllables (which I firmly believe puts them in a disadvantage; I'm still looking for a reasonably terse generic word for "the person who delivers my mail" because "letter carrier" is a mouthful, and "mail person" just sounds like a weird way of referring to a man or boy, which is the opposite of what the generic term is for).
I'm still not convinced this is quite as ergonomic as it could be though because of a quirk of phrasing; instead of saying "I googled that", you'd need to say "I looked that up". As someone who often struggles to enunciate super well most of the time without my speech becoming slow to the point of tedious, it does still feel a bit more verbose because "googled" is such an awkward word that you can sort of pronounce it almost like 1.5 syllables by softening the second 'g' to produce something like "I goo-ulled that" and its still is intelligible. It still might be close enough that it can catch on, and I'm not at all opposed to it because of this minor inconvenience, but I do think that there are factors beyond a pure syllable count come into play even just in terms of linguistics rather than social convention.
They are actively transforming it into "ask Gemini" though. Which for me is often wrong. The organic search results are farther down, and if a lucrative term...you have to scroll past ads also. And the quality is not what it once was.
I can't think how anyone is going to be confused and think I want them to check the bins or something, but maybe we search for different things on the web.
My kids and their friends say “search it up”. I have no idea if that’s representative of the tween/teen population. But google as a verb will likely die on its own. It’s been a while since I’ve xeroxed anything.
To google (two syllables, only slightly glibber, due to no "b-s" plosive-fricative combo).
Maybe "web search" can be shortened to "bsearch" or "besearch", like "web log" got shortened to "blog".
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catapart · · focus · HN ↗
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe google it?" is pretty innocuous no matter the context.
"Hmm. Not sure. Maybe look it up?" can sound dismissive or condescending in some cases to some people's ear.
It's a weird quirk of English where being non-specific is like saying "I don't know, you figure it out", where being very specific is like saying "Here's the solution (that I would use)".
saghm · · focus · HN ↗
I'm still not convinced this is quite as ergonomic as it could be though because of a quirk of phrasing; instead of saying "I googled that", you'd need to say "I looked that up". As someone who often struggles to enunciate super well most of the time without my speech becoming slow to the point of tedious, it does still feel a bit more verbose because "googled" is such an awkward word that you can sort of pronounce it almost like 1.5 syllables by softening the second 'g' to produce something like "I goo-ulled that" and its still is intelligible. It still might be close enough that it can catch on, and I'm not at all opposed to it because of this minor inconvenience, but I do think that there are factors beyond a pure syllable count come into play even just in terms of linguistics rather than social convention.
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So Google is polluting what it means anyway.
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I can't think how anyone is going to be confused and think I want them to check the bins or something, but maybe we search for different things on the web.
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kazinator · · focus · HN ↗
To google (two syllables, only slightly glibber, due to no "b-s" plosive-fricative combo).
Maybe "web search" can be shortened to "bsearch" or "besearch", like "web log" got shortened to "blog".
"besearch" has grammatical precedence: bestow, bequeath, behead, bewitch, belabor, befriend, ...