Congratulations "google", you're officially a word now. You've finally got the juice you deserve. No more getting carded at librarian conventions. Maybe soon that red line under you in Word will go away. Before you get too excited, let's take a look at other famous proper nouns that have now slipped into our daily usage.

First, you're hardly the first corporation to get turned into a word. Just the other day I was xeroxing a pile of résumés and noticed "LOSER!" written in sharpie on one of them, so I fixed it with white out. I dropped the stack on my boss's desk with a post it on the best applicant, saying "put this guy in your rolodex". Unfortunately, I got an awful paper cut and needed a band aid for my finger and a kleenex to wipe away the tears.

Also, now that you are public domain, unlike your dad "Google", its up to the people to determine how you'll be remembered. They say that history is written by the victors, but the dictionaries are a different situation entirely (except in science-fiction novels). It excites me to think that crass wielders of power today (Limbaugh and Santorum, for instance) will have legacies that reflect their crassitude but perhaps not their power (Limbaugh and Santorum, again). It's happened before, you know.

Finally, as my parting advice to you, "google", I'd just like to remind you to stay humble. You may think yourself the top of your class (especially since you were added to the dictionary along with "spyware" and "unibrow"), but think of all the words that were on top before you. People may be talking about you right now, but that can change. It was only yesterday when newspapers were in a tizzy about "bling", "blog", and—oh yeah, I almost forgot—"googol".