Bloody Well Write

A friend of mine has a dog — and an extraordinarily adorable one at that — named Google. This same friend is also the technology teacher at a local middle school. The dog’s name, then, makes even more sense, yes?

So when this friend asked me the proper way to spell the word that implies the action of looking something up on the popular search engine named Google (and then suggested that it could make a decent blog topic — smart friend), I just had to help.

Google, the ridiculously cute pup (photo: courtesy of Google's owner-mom)

So how do you spell it? Depending on your phrasing, there are a few ways to get your point across:

• He is going to Google “How to use a neti pot” whenever his sinuses start to flare up.
• I Googled the movie times for “Eat, Pray, Love” — so excited to see it.
• She found a groovy pair of blue beaded sandals by Googling them — and they were available in her size.

Notice that the final “e” remains in the first two examples but gets dropped when the suffix -ing gets added. (It’s Googling, not Googleing.) Note, too, that all instances use an uppercase “G” in the initial position. According to the newest AP Stylebook, it’s Google when you’re talking about the company and search engine, indeed, but it’s also Google when you’re employing a verb. Same goes for Googled and Googling. One day, all references (save the company name, search engine and awesome dog) may be lowercased, but that day has yet to come.

Don’t just take my word for it; why don’t you Google it for yourself?

Happy trails!

SAK

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