You may recall last summer when “Google” was added to both the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary as a verb. I hear Google used as a verb quite frequently, for example: “Why don’t you go Google it if you don’t know what it means?” When it was added to dictionaries, Google made it clear that their trademarked name was not to be used as a verb because they feared it would turn into a general term for performing a web search. At this point, I don’t think there’s anything they can do to stop people from using “Google” as a verb.
So while they’ve discouraged the use of Google as a verb, they’ve actually made YouTube a verb themselves on one of their official blogs. The article is titled “How to YouTube” and correct me if I’m wrong, but YouTube was definitely the verb in that sentence! So perhaps it’s okay for them to use their own trademarks as verbs, but not everybody else?
Googlified points out a YouTube definition from Urban Dictionary (slang dictionary) where it’s defined as:
- v. when one looks for a particular kind of video on the website.
Used in a sentence, it would look something like: “I YouTubed “old commercials” and found a ton of classics.”
Whether Google likes it or not, I think YouTube is on its way to becoming an “official” verb, which then got me thinking about other Internet terms that have become verbs over time. The first one that came to mind was Photoshop. And like Google, Adobe has said that the Photoshop trademark should never be used as a verb – too late though! They even give correct and incorrect examples on their website:
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
I do see why companies are a bit skeptical over the use of their trademark though, particularly recently when I read on a blog “Checkout this image, I photoshopped it in Paint.” Hmm… last time I checked, you could only Photoshop something in Photoshop. 
So what other examples are there? I could only think of Photoshop, but I know there’s got to be more…
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Tags: Web Sites, Adobe, YouTube
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your actually wrong, google doesnt mind the word google being used as a verb. what they objected to was how it was put into the dictionary. the wanted it to not be defined as a generic web search, but as a web search done using google.
No different than people using ‘Xerox’ as verb
Kleenex? Might not be a verb but it’s along the same lines…..
I Love GOOGLE!~
Actually, Ashley, I’ve seen a number of people refer to any image editing as “photoshopping”. While it’s sorta stupid logic..think about it. “I gimped it” “I paint.net’ed it” “I MS painted it”. How dumb to those all sound compared to photoshop?
Nice one…I can’t think of any others though.
Coke (for any kinda cola).
“I have a headache, I need some Aspirin”, used for any type of headache/pain killer. At lease in Canada around the people I know use it that way.
In the UK the word “Aspirin” is not trademarked, and is a generic word.
from wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A....._trademark
“Sterling was subsequently unable to prevent “Aspirin” from being ruled a genericized trademark in a U.S. federal court in 1921. Sterling was ultimately acquired by Bayer in 1994, but this did not restore the U.S. trademark. Other countries (such as Canada and many countries in Europe) still consider “Aspirin” a protected trademark.”
thats is why companies don’t want their brand to be used generically, they could loose their trademark!