'Googling'

Ever "googled" anyone? That's where you look someone up in the popular search engine Google to see what it can turn up about them. It's the thing to do for the dating set -- checking out a new babe or beau online to see if they're a criminal or pervert or as successful as they claim. It's become so prevalent that a new verb, "to google," is showing up all over the place -- in print, online, on TV -- anywhere trendiness is observed. I've used Google and other search engines to look up my friends and family (and myself -- apparently, men check up on themselves and women check up on other people. Let's not get into the reasons!) without knowing I was participating in a worldwide trend. Of course, "googling" has its limits -- lots of people have common names (I didn't know mine was so popular!) so you may get lots of false hits. It's a great search engine, though, and it's fun to see what's out there.

Ever 'googled' anyone? Give it a try! http://www.google.com

- Dennis Ryan

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001