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Is ‘google’ easy to memorize for English speaking ppl? Its not even grammatically correct. Lycos or altavista was easier

Macha 7y ago
Lycos is ambiguous to pronounce - is it lie-cos (as in cost) or lie-coas (as in telcos). Altavista has more syllables than google.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  I'm not a native English speaker but I'd read Lycos as lee-cos, so neither of your options ;)
  - gerdesj 7y ago
    Quite and I remember getting werewolf connotations from the name back in the day. Lycanthrope.
    - elliottkember 7y ago
      There’s a very good reason for that: lýkos (λύκος) is Greek for wolf. Lycanthrope would be lykos (wolf) + anthropos (person). Language is fun
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    /lee/ is also a standard way to pronounce "lie" (as in Lie Algebra)
freehunter 7y ago
Google is very difficult for me to say. I don't think I have a speech impediment, but perhaps my northern Midwest American accent just slurs the end of the word and I end up saying "Goo-chl". I hate saying the word because I know it's so difficult for me to say. But since "google" is now a verb, it's pretty entrenched. I say "I googled this" even when I actually used Bing or DDG. It's harder to imagine Lycos or Altavista becoming a verb. Maybe it's because Google has been a verb for so long, but "google it" sounds better than "lycos it" and I cannot imagine ever saying "just altavista it". I certainly cannot image someone saying "I dogpiled this".
- mkl 7y ago
  Is "frugal" easy to say? Or "bugle", "centrifugal", "MacDougall"? They all end the same for me (NZ).
  - freehunter 7y ago
    Since you mention that, it might be the first syllable that is difficult. Frugal and bugle are easy to say. Google is not. Maybe it's the back-to-back hard-G sound?
    - Izkata 7y ago
      To me it's the same "g" as in the word "good". "good" + "frugal" -> "google"
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      Yes the double G is hard for some people, because you have to leave yhrG and come back to or immediately.
puranjay 7y ago
In general, the "oo" vowel sound is easy to pronounce across languages. And I daresay, its the most fun vowel sound too.
earthboundkid 7y ago
It’s misspelled (should be “googol”) but the misspelling aligns it better with English speaker’s intuitions. A similar issue is how “tinnitus” is often called “tinnitis” and nooklear (nuclear) is pronounced nookular.
- scarmig 7y ago
  It's actually two misspellings that counteract each other. Yes, the googol is the number, but when naming the number the mathematician asked his nephew what it should be, who responded with the name of his favorite cartoon character, spelled Google.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Do you have a reference for that? Google.com can't find it.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    > name of his favorite cartoon character, spelled Google Source? A web search is not corroborating this version. What I can find is this, from Perfect Figures (Crumpacker, 2007): > On a walk with Milton and Milton’s brother, he asked if either of them had any ideas, and Milton came up with googol. > At this late date—Milton died in 1980—we can only speculate about why that was the word he thought of. Did he like the burbly, messy, baby sound of goo? Or did it sound monstrous, like a name for an ogre? Had he heard of Barney Google with the goo-goo-googly eyes?” Seems like this explanation is at best pure speculation. (Didn’t stop someone from adding it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith as a factual claim, improperly referencing the book quotation above. I just fixed it.)
    - scarmig 7y ago
      I'm guessing this question is unresolvable, given that nine year old Milton never specified where he got the idea of the google word. Apparently Larry found it a convincing enough story that the first book scanned for Google books was The Google Book, which was itself th source for the name Barney Google.
viraptor 7y ago
It's only one word - how can it be grammatically incorrect?

Macha 7y ago

Lycos is ambiguous to pronounce - is it lie-cos (as in cost) or lie-coas (as in telcos). Altavista has more syllables than google.

Smithalicious 7y ago
I'm not a native English speaker but I'd read Lycos as lee-cos, so neither of your options ;)
- gerdesj 7y ago
  Quite and I remember getting werewolf connotations from the name back in the day. Lycanthrope.
  - elliottkember 7y ago
    There’s a very good reason for that: lýkos (λύκος) is Greek for wolf. Lycanthrope would be lykos (wolf) + anthropos (person). Language is fun
- lonelappde 7y ago
  /lee/ is also a standard way to pronounce "lie" (as in Lie Algebra)

freehunter 7y ago

Google is very difficult for me to say. I don't think I have a speech impediment, but perhaps my northern Midwest American accent just slurs the end of the word and I end up saying "Goo-chl". I hate saying the word because I know it's so difficult for me to say. But since "google" is now a verb, it's pretty entrenched. I say "I googled this" even when I actually used Bing or DDG. It's harder to imagine Lycos or Altavista becoming a verb. Maybe it's because Google has been a verb for so long, but "google it" sounds better than "lycos it" and I cannot imagine ever saying "just altavista it". I certainly cannot image someone saying "I dogpiled this".

mkl 7y ago
Is "frugal" easy to say? Or "bugle", "centrifugal", "MacDougall"? They all end the same for me (NZ).
- freehunter 7y ago
  Since you mention that, it might be the first syllable that is difficult. Frugal and bugle are easy to say. Google is not. Maybe it's the back-to-back hard-G sound?
  - Izkata 7y ago
    To me it's the same "g" as in the word "good". "good" + "frugal" -> "google"
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Yes the double G is hard for some people, because you have to leave yhrG and come back to or immediately.

puranjay 7y ago

In general, the "oo" vowel sound is easy to pronounce across languages. And I daresay, its the most fun vowel sound too.

earthboundkid 7y ago

It’s misspelled (should be “googol”) but the misspelling aligns it better with English speaker’s intuitions. A similar issue is how “tinnitus” is often called “tinnitis” and nooklear (nuclear) is pronounced nookular.

scarmig 7y ago
It's actually two misspellings that counteract each other. Yes, the googol is the number, but when naming the number the mathematician asked his nephew what it should be, who responded with the name of his favorite cartoon character, spelled Google.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Do you have a reference for that? Google.com can't find it.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  > name of his favorite cartoon character, spelled Google Source? A web search is not corroborating this version. What I can find is this, from Perfect Figures (Crumpacker, 2007): > On a walk with Milton and Milton’s brother, he asked if either of them had any ideas, and Milton came up with googol. > At this late date—Milton died in 1980—we can only speculate about why that was the word he thought of. Did he like the burbly, messy, baby sound of goo? Or did it sound monstrous, like a name for an ogre? Had he heard of Barney Google with the goo-goo-googly eyes?” Seems like this explanation is at best pure speculation. (Didn’t stop someone from adding it to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith as a factual claim, improperly referencing the book quotation above. I just fixed it.)
  - scarmig 7y ago
    I'm guessing this question is unresolvable, given that nine year old Milton never specified where he got the idea of the google word. Apparently Larry found it a convincing enough story that the first book scanned for Google books was The Google Book, which was itself th source for the name Barney Google.

viraptor 7y ago

It's only one word - how can it be grammatically incorrect?