Google: The Word of the Decade

Google is the word of the decade! The American Dialect Society has named google - the verb - as its Word of the Decade as stated in the article "Google: The Word of the Decade"by Frederic Lardinois of Read Write Web. Apparently "google" is actually a verb which means "to search the internet". Yes, this means that the word we all thought was just a term is part of our dictionaries. If you didn't know this already, Tweet was actually named the top word of the year for 2009. I honestly didn't think it was used that much, but I guess people just didn't "tweet" much around me. On the other hand, we have the most useful word of 2009, Fail - "a noun or interjection used when something is egregiously unsuccessful". I suppose it's pretty evident why "Fail" was the most used word, remember who was in office up until '09?

A little more information on the American Dialect Society, in case you're wondering why they can make the shots on what word becomes the word of the year, or the word of the decade. It was founded in 1889 and the group consists of linguists, grammarians, etymologists, writers, ediotrs, and university students.

By the way, to represent the 1990s, the ADS picked WEB as the top word of the decade. I just learned about ADS yesterday, but I definitely agree on "Fail" as the most useful word, since "Tweet" is basically "Fail". To me, Twitter is still a website that took Facebook status updates and put it on a website so people can narrate their lives all year long.

The end of the article imposes quite the question on us, and even hints at the cultural dominance of Google. The Author ends with "What do you think? Do you think google deserves to be the one word that represents the last decade? Or is this just another example of how Google is succeeding in its slow takeover of our culture?"

I think that google definitely deserves to be the one word to represent our decade! How many times have you asked someone a question and they replied with a simple phrase "Google it". It has become integrated in our everyday lives, and yes, it also exemplifies how Google is succeeding in their takeover of our culture.

The Google search page changed the way we see our results, Google Maps changed how we look at the world, GMail offered us more space, somewhat unnecessary, but who's going to complain about more space, in our inboxes, Google changed the Internet Marketing industry and helps connect millions of people to the products they enjoy, and although they may be getting heat from China right now, they are preserving thousands of pieces of literature by digital submission. Google will keep on expanding, and I wouldn't doubt it if they made their own operating system or became the new Microsoft.

But I am definitely not complaining, every one of Google's products that I have used have been efficient, user-friendly, and an important factor many of us forget, useful. Google has definitely made an impression on our culture, and definitely deserves to be the word of the decade.