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The latest Merriam-Webster's dictionary update has ruffled a few feathers online. Not for the inclusion of Manga (noun: a Japanese comic book or graphic novel) nor ringtone (noun: the sound made by a cell phone to signal an incoming call) or even supersize (transitive verb: to increase considerably the size, amount, or extent of.)

Could it possibly be mouse potato (noun: a person who spends a great deal of time using a computer) or himbo (noun: and attractive but vacuous man?). Nope, then surely unibrow (noun: a single continuous brow resulting from the growing together of eyebrows) or even soul patch (noun: a small growth of beard under a man's lower lip) must be the cause?

Heck, even spyware (noun: software that is installed in a computer without the user's knowledge and transmits information about the user's computer activities over the Internet) and avian influenza (noun: a highly variable mild to fulminant influenza of birds that is caused by strains of the influenza A virus which may mutate and be transmitted to other vertebrates -- called also bird flu) hasn’t got anyone slightly excited.

Of the 100 new words that have been added to the 2006 update of America’s first and best-selling dictionary, the one that’s attracting all the online attention is google (verb: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.)

It remains to be seen whether Google will behave like a drama queen (noun: a person given to often excessively emotional performances or reactions) considering it has frowned on people using google as a verb in print. Indeed, as is often the way with brands protecting their trademarks, Google has positively discouraged such usage. Well now they can’t because it’s official. So can I just say that I google every day and often advise others to go google. As an Englishman I must point out that our very own Oxford English Dictionary made the Google (upper case though) verb inclusion last month with a very similar definition.

Google does have something of a genuine concern, in as far as the inclusion of google as a verb does push it ever closer to becoming part of the general lexicon, and that would mean exclusion from legal protection for the trademark. The fact that Merriam-Webster's chose a lower case google, rather than the upper case OED usage, will ease the concern a tad. But perhaps the days when you can go google at Yahoo! are closer than we might think?

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correctly flags the real worry (loss of trademark through "genericide") and is right to ask whether a dictionary has any legal authority. The short legal point: a dictionary entry by itself does not cancel trademark rights. U.S. practice looks to whether the relevant public primarily understands the word as the name of a product/service category rather than as a source identifier — the Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure explains that test and the two-step inquiry courts use. TMEP (genericness) (tmep.uspto.gov)

Courts have made that concrete. Notably, the Ninth Circuit held in the Elliott litigation that verbing a mark (saying “I googled it”) is not automatically fatal; a plaintiff must show that consumers use the word to mean the category of search engines generally, not just the Google service. Verb use is strong evidence to watch, but it is not dispositive on its own. (blog.citp.princeton.edu)

That legal nuance explains why brand owners actively police usage. Google’s own Brand Resource Center instructs third parties to use trademarks only as adjectives (e.g., “Google search”) and not as verbs or generic nouns, and provides clear “do’s” and “don’ts” for public usage. These editorial rules are part of the practical toolkit companies use to avoid genericide. Google Brand Rules (about.google)

Practical takeaway for editors, SEOs and legal-minded writers: dictionaries record widespread usage but do not by themselves decide trademark law (Merriam‑Webster is a publisher, not a government regulator). If preserving a mark matters, use the brand as an adjective + generic noun, capitalize it correctly, follow the owner’s style rules, and correct careless generic uses in published copy; conversely, casual verbing by individuals is unlikely on its own to strip a famous company of its rights. Merriam‑Webster — About Us. (merriam-webster.com)

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Since when is the Webster 'official' and in what capacity?
Is it some sort of government body which defines what the language is? And if so which government (as English is spoken in many countries as the native language).

AFAIK English has no official government (or intergovernmental) organisation to define what the language is (like German or Dutch has).

Therefore Google could just sue the publisher for trademark infringement ;)

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