To google is human, to vole divine

TO GOOGLE HAS BECOME a verb but it looks like it may be a while before the Merriam-Webster dictionary voles with its paws and accepts that "to Microsoft" is valid too.

It could be a while longer still until dictionary nit-pickers accept that "to be Chipzillad" means you've felt the power of the mighty Intel.

Much to Chipzilla's chagrin, the word intel is widely used to relate to stuff that's nothing to do with microprocessors. It's shorthand for intelligence.

We credit the late Terry Shannon for coining the term Chipzilla, but even weighty organs such as the Economist have used the term, even supplying a picture.

The term "The Vole" for Microsoft has attracted the attention of the pedants at Wikipedia, and the jury is still out on the meaning of the word.

Nitpickers at MSN, a Volish operation, don't use it to describe themselves but list the relevant noun, "vole", to describe the taking of all tricks in a single hand.

As this Wikipedia page points out, Ratty in The Wind in the Willows is a water vole, not a rat. And some techies refer to Microsoft's HQ as the VoleHill, it appears.

The word "marchitecture" is more widely used than the Vole, see here. But we'd humbly suggest its first use was rather earlier than the pundits on that page suggest. See here, for example. µ

See Also
The INQUIRER guide to INQUIRER jargon