What did Marge Simpson mean when she said while googling her name
629,000 results. Wow. And all this time I thought that ‘googling’ yourself meant the other thing.
(S18 E17, April 22, 2007)
Source: WikiSimpsons
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this communityWhat did Marge Simpson mean when she said while googling her name
629,000 results. Wow. And all this time I thought that ‘googling’ yourself meant the other thing.
(S18 E17, April 22, 2007)
Source: WikiSimpsons
Today it's common practice to google someone's name in order to do a little background check, or to discover why a certain person is a celebrity or in the news.
In 2007, the expression “Googling" was still in its infancy, and although Marge Simpson's character is often portrayed as a naive warm-hearted housewife and devoted mother, she probably guessed, incorrectly, that “googling yourself” was slang for fondling or pleasuring oneself.
Image taken from Gawker.com
The first recorded usage of google used as a gerund, thus supposing an intransitive verb, was on July 8, 1998, by Google co-founder Larry Page himself, who wrote on a mailing list: "Have fun and keep googling!". Its earliest known use (as a transitive verb) on American television was in the "Help" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (October 15, 2002), when Willow asked Buffy, "Have you googled her yet?"
Who knows what was really intended? You are, after all, free to imagine whatever you like. It might have been goosing (pinching someone's bottom). If that sounds a bit tame, it is a children's programme, and Marge is a bit of a prude.
goose verb [ T ]
informal to press or take hold of someone's bottom