Many tech bloggers, SEO experts, and influential tech news outlets, have started to speculate whether one day “to bing” is almost similar to “to google.” They both could be a verb. The first huddle is a process by an organization (for example, American Dialect Society) that could choose “bing” as the word of the Year of 2009 or 2010.
As New York Times wrote: “The name, he told The New York Times, “works globally” and has the potential “to verb up.” That is, some day, Mr. Ballmer hopes, people will “bing” a new restaurant to find its address or “bing” a new job applicant for telling events in his past.”
According to the New York Times, “The risk of becoming generic is so low, and the benefits of being on the top of someone’s mind are so high,” said Rebecca Tushnet, an expert on trademark law at Georgetown University.” “…people now understand as a practical matter is that it is very good when people use your name as verb.”
Before we can speculate whether “bing” may be considered as a verb, let’s look into the history of word “google” before this word was recognized as verb.
(1) to google (v.)
It started when americandialect.org picked “google” as 2002 Words of the Year. As seen on wikipedia.org, google (v.) “was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary on June 15, 2006, and to the eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in July 2006”
According to merriam-webster.com, the verb to google refers to using “the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.” It was trademarked in 2001.
Main entry:
to google (v.)
Other forms:
googling (v.)
googled (v.)
(2) to bing (v.)
As Bing decision engine continues to receive good feedbacks and continues to show popular among searchers, in the next few years “bing” will be chosen as the word of the year. It then will be added into dictionaries.
As it will be added into a dictionary, the verb to bing refers to using “the Bing decision engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.”
Main entry:
to bing (v.)
Other forms:
binging (v.)
binged (v.)
(picture: merriam-webster.com)
