Thursday, January 10, 2008

To Google or not to Google-What Was the Question?


I'm slowly coming to terms with the modern computer jargon, especially these crazy verbs like: "Do you facebook?" or "try googling that". I hear people talking to each other in these terms and no one seems to question the correctness of this type of language, so it must be universally accepted. I laughed to myself the other day when I was thinking about how I would turn these words into verbs in the Bosnian language (I won't explain it because it would only be funny if you knew the language). Oh, and yes I am one of those guys who laughs out loud for no apparent reason. Man, I enjoy my inner monologue.

Now that I'm teaching English again at our reading room I started thinking... What would the simple past tense of "to facebook" be? facebooked? "Hey what did you do today?" "Oh I facebooked, and then I…". Then the present progressive, "I am currently facebooking", or the past progressive: "Man I am tired, I was facebooking until one in the morning". Okay, who knows this tense: "John has been facebooking all afternoon."

Alas, I can make fun of this internet culture no longer, I have relented and have joined my first online social network. Now you can find me facebooking with the rest of the online world. I wonder if C.S. Lewis would have facebooked?
p.s. - my spell check did not like these internet words… someone should inform google that they are now a verb. Oh, and if you can use the verb facebook in any foreign language... please leave me a comment.

4 comments:

Earle-girl said...

Guess what? "Facebook" in Danish is... "Facebook." As in, "Hvorfor fænger Facebook?"

I googled it. Or was googling it. It was sooo googlesque.

Travis i Stacy said...

I can't say that this is grammitically correct, but I think Bosnian would be something like: "danas facebookujem".
Perhaps German would be "ich habe gefacebookt" or even funnier "ich habe facegebookt".

Kurt said...

I would have been facebooking at this time, but I was reading your post.

Krista said...

V cestina by bylo "Facebookuju" nebo "Facebookoval" Nebo "Facebookovani"

In Czech it would be "Facebookuju" (I am facebooking), or "Facebookoval" (I facebooked) or "Facebookovani" (facebooking as in..."I enjoy facebooking")

Krista