When a is a noun not a noun?

[sp1814]

What is correct:

"I Googled the title of the film..."

or


"I googled the title of the film..."

We use the word 'hoover' with a lower case 'h', but Google always seems to be capitalised.

Which is right?

[mindblock]

Hoover probably comes up as upper case because Hoover was the name of the person who invented it , so it is a noun( pro-noun actually as it is a name of a person)

I think that because Google is the name of a company this would be a capital letter. Like banks, building societies, companies etc. They begin with a capital letter.

[sp1814]

mindblock

Thank you for your answer...but when the verb 'hoover' is used, it always seems to be in lower case...but as you say, it should be capitalised.

It seems that there's a point at which recognised names become verbs...but I'd like to find out how/when/why this comes about.

[tara20]

Possibly when it's accepted as common usage.
Many expressions like hoovering, googling, nylon,biro, then replace the original vacuuming, ballpoint pen (can't even remember what we used for the others!)
Maybe it's then official when it appears in the Oxford Dictionary ? Just a guess.

[jno]

manufacturers can get quite upset when their product is lower-cased as they fear they are losing the potency of their brand: people say Bic when they're thinking of something else. Perversely, it's when a brand becomes really dominant in its market that this happens. I imagine Mr Dyson would secretly love everyone to talk about dysoning their carpets rather than hoovering them. Anyway, newspaper editors get letters of complaint from maunufacturers when it happens; but I think in everyday communication lower-case letters are ok. Google is the most recent instance of a trade name entering the language - very quick, wasn't it? - but I think you can already justify using it as either lower case or capitalised.

[taichiperson]

If you 'hoover the floor', it is then a verb, not a noun, wheras 'the Hoover' is a noun.......... If you google, it's a verb?? What I'm saying is, it depends if the word is used as a noun or verb.

[jno]

from the point of the view of the manufacturer I'm not sure it makes any difference if it's a noun or a verb. I don't know that Google (the company) is bothering to alert its lawyers, but technically - if you look up something on Ask.com, are you googling it? Such is Google's dominance, I think you probably are, the word has become generic. But Google would probably disagree with this. Similarly, can you hoover the floor with a Dyson? In common speech, probably yes. In Hoover's lawyers' offices, probably not.

[Quizmonster]

The online version of The Oxford English Dictionary lists Google, with a capital 'G', as a verb. Thus, as others have suggested above, it is probably just a matter of time before it becomes a lower-case 'g'.
So, you should be quite happy - meantime - to write "I Googled the title of the film"...you'd be in good company.

[sp1814]

Thanks to all the respondants.

I never thought of biro as a trade name. It just never occurred to me that it should be Biro.

I will in future use the term:

"I searched the Net for the title of the film..."

Less elegant, but not open to misinterpretation.

[heathfield]

'google' is now listed as a verb in several dictionaries, but the Google company don't like it. Read about it here

[dundurn]

Hoover don't like hoovering, either. If companies don't protect such infringements of their tradenames they eventually lose them. Linoleum, when it was first introduced was the registered name of a single product. People got into the habit of referring to all similar floor coverings as "lino" and the company was unable to stop other people using its proprietary name and ultimately taking away its business. Hoover would be especially distressed if one day you could advertise "Dyson, the hoover you can trust" or something similar.