quidnovis61

It all started on a normal Tuesday evening. We decided to have a cup of tea, a bowl of fruits and see a film. No mind boggling decisions or anything of the sort...  It was a random choice - probably based on the fact that the film starred Maeve Dermody whom we liked from the tv serial Serangoon Road. The film was "Griff the Invisible" - an Australian comedy.

 

Nope! No one has probably even heard of it!

                       

 

Here is the plot from the IMDB site:

 

"The story is about Griff  Ryan Kwanten) a socially awkward office worker who spends his days being bullied by his workmates. At night he is Griff the Invisible, a superhero who roams the streets of his local neighbourhood, protecting the innocent. Griff has his world turned upside down when he meets Melody  (Maeve Dermody) the beautiful young daughter of a hardware store owner, who shares his passion for the impossible..."

 
The film in itself is just entertainment... nothing to really write home about .... but there are some great dialogues in it, like this one here below:

Melody: What were you like as a kid?

Griff: Small?

 

(LOL) 

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But what really perked my ears up was Melody asking Griff:

"Do you know anyone who has googled Google?"

 

And I thought...

Hmm...how true! Now why haven't I done that??

And so on Monday morning, coffee in hand, laptop on lap - I did just that!

And oh my! was I astonished to find what I found!

Maybe its only me and every one else knew all about it... well....I certainly didn't!

 

Google began in March 1996 as a research project at Stanford by two young men: Page and Brin. The funny thing was that they wanted to name their project GOOGOL "which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros".......10¹⁰⁰......(omg, and how mindboggling is thaaaaat?) but these guys actually MISSPELLT the  word googol and wrote Google ... and thus this new word was created!

 

In 2006 "google" entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet"...now we are all saying google-googled-googling as if it was on par with play-played-playing or walk-walked-walking..... I have read that in December 2009 the BBC even highlighted Google in their "Portrait of the Decade Words" series!

 

And so....“google” is now a common generic word!

 

But what really astounded me..... amazed me....nonplussed me .... was the fact that the word "google" was already used..... in Nineteen Forty Six....!!!!! by no less than one of my favourite children's authors - Enid Blyton.

 

That was what truly nonplussed me!

Blyton used the phrase "Google Bun" in The Magic Faraway Tree and The Folk of the Faraway Tree and also named a clown character "Google" in Circus Days Again.

I had no idea at all....!

 

(I am not sure about this but it seems that in 1919 there was a comic strip character also called Barney Google)

And although I have not read the popular cult book (it is not my favourite genre) Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  (1978), I believe he too used the word "Googleplex Star Thinker"....

 

What intrigued me was of course ENID BLYTON... I searched the net and found the book The Magic Faraway Tree in a second hand online bookstore. I ordered it and it arrived within a week from England. I just had to read it and see for myself that the word "google" was truly there!! I started reading and lo and behold ... there it was!!!!

 

See for your self here below.....Unbelievable!!! :-)

 

So I have to say Thank You to "Melody" for setting me on the course to such a joyous journey of discovery and lexical adventure which I would never have experienced otherwise!

 

Signing off for now!

C.S