Sourced from www.itvibe.comJuly 09, 2006 by Simon Spicer
Google has become such an commonly used word and essential part of modern day speech that it’s now in the dictionary.
The 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, scheduled for publication later this year, will include “google” as a transitive verb, meaning “to use the Google search engine to obtain information…..on the World Wide Web”.
Although this recognition suggests evidence of the huge success of the search engine company, it must be recognised that there could be a potential detrimental impact on the companys trademark protection. If the word google becomes recognised as a verb it could result in other people using the word ‘google’ to refer to their own products, thus potentially diminishing the Google brand name.
In an attempt to recognise the trademark status, Merriam-Webster lowercases the entry but maintains the capitalization while explaining that the verb means “to use the Google search engine” to retrieve online information.
However, this is not the first time Google has appeared in a dictionary; the Oxford English Dictionary included the word in its June update to its online version.