Comments on: Will we bing? Having bung, will we ever google again?

By: Jack

Jack — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:29:58 +0000

I googled “bing.com” and bada-bing, bunch of links about The Sopranos showed up in the results… Duh!

Come to think of it, I like the idea of using http://www.duh.com to build a search engine. Imagine a search engine where the search result page always starts off with a Steven Wright quote

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:32:40 +0000

Bing means many things in Chinese, but the intonation here is most associated with the character 病，which means illness or disease. I’d love to see how Microsoft will localize that one for China someday.

By: yeep

yeep — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:41:17 +0000

i thought this was going to have more than just info and thought about just the name…

By: The Name Inspector

The Name Inspector — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:39:38 +0000

P.S. That punctuation problem results when people don’t think about (or don’t care) how their name will actually be used in context.

By: The Name Inspector

The Name Inspector — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:35:11 +0000

Molly, another prominent example of a name with punctuation is Yahoo!. At least, the exclamation point is part of the logo on the site, but it usually gets left off when people write about the company. Maybe that’s the tack to take with Fish./Fish as well. I can definitely see why it’s an annoyance to copy editors.

By: Molly

Molly — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:28:40 +0000

Around my house we’ve taken to calling our computers “google machines.”

I see the merits of an exclamation point for Bing, but editors hate that stuff. And copy editors *really* hate it. There is a most excellent restaurant in the Bay Area named Fish. That “.” is part of the name – as in “Fish, period” that’s all they serve (at least I assume that was the thinking). I love everything about it except that “.” It forces one to write things like “I love going to Fish. on a Sunday afternoon.” You see the ridiculous that begins. I can’t think of another example of a name that has punctuation in it, but surely there are many. I’m wondering if The Name Inspector has any thoughts on the matter.

By: Anthony Mitchell

Anthony Mitchell — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:37:40 +0000

I’d bing that.

By: jb

jb — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:23:44 +0000

I think verbable names aren’t only a desirable thing. They also augment the risk, that a name transforms into a verb with a negative meaning. If (heaven forbid) “bing” doesn’t work properly, “to bing” could also transform in a verb meaning “get lost in useless information”

By: The Name Inspector

The Name Inspector — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:32:04 +0000

All comments about the name Bing are welcome here, MacGizmoGuy. You’re right, to get that “sound of found” message across, an exclamation point would help.

By: MacGizmoGuy

MacGizmoGuy — Sun, 31 May 2009 15:31:00 +0000

I don’t mean to go off topic… but when we’re done with the verb-up-age of Bing — can we move on to punctuation? I think Bing! search really deserves an exclamation point. Like “Tah-Dah! Here’s your search results!”