Talking About The Internet: 'Let Me Ask Google' Or 'Let Me Google It'?

Recently, Facebook pulled the plug on an artificial intelligence system after it created its own language. But it’s not only AI that transforms its communications. Humans modify their language too, just obviously much slower.

The BBC’s article looks into the recent changes in the vocabulary that refers to the online world, but also how the internet influences the language itself. “The ways in which we talk about technology – and how we communicate through it – are rapidly changing,” writes the BBC.

For example, the advent of the smartphone has majorly affected the way society talks about the internet. What would you say if you were supposed to find a nearby restaurant using your smartphone?

“You don’t say, ‘I’ll look online’, you say ‘I’ll look on my phone’, because that is the physical device in front of you,” explains Naomi Baron, professor of Linguistics at American University and author of 'Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World'. “I think we’ve taken away the need to reference anything other than that which we physically have in front of us.”

The article isn’t about leetspeak or txtspeak, nor about programming jargon. It’s not only for geeks or those interested in linguistics. It might not reveal to you anything unheard of or surprising, but it surely provides food for thought.

What is more common in your language repertoire - "Let me ask Google" or "Let me google it"? Adjectives like “cyber”, and nouns “the internet” and “the web” are among other words being discussed. And yes, the fact that I’m referring to “the internet” without capitalizing the “I” is also one of the linguistic trends discussed by the BBC.