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Comment by sjroot | Hacker News Reader

This is cool and I hope it leads to a rebranding. While I like DDG a lot, the name has always felt off-putting to me. I'd much rather say "I'll just search Google" than "I'll just search DuckDuckGo."

Does an extra syllable really cause that much additional friction?

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Also, rather than saying “Google it” maybe we can now say “Duck it”.

Haha, yes!

Duuckle it!

Suggested title of blog post announcing change: "Duck Yeah!"

I rarely use the term "ducking" in conversation, though auto-correct thinks otherwise. Maybe now I will.

"I was ducking around and found a few good resources for fixing the OSPF problem."

In Trinbagonian dialect, "ducking" is the act of skipping work/school.

See: https://youtu.be/2qunog47EVo for musical reference.

"Ducking" is also a term used in audio mixing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducking

"Are you good at ducking mate? Let's party!"

Also is in the UK - esp 'Duck Out' - to step out of a meeting or situation.

"duck" is also used often in the context of not giving an answer (e.g. "duck the issue"), which is an unfortunate connotation for a search engine.

Finally auto correct of "ducking" from the ruder alternative will make sense.

"I spent the day ducking around on the internet"

This is the best ducking thread on the internet today. Well done all.

If you use !bangs, its a duck hunt.

D and F are are a little too close for comfort on the 'ol qwerty.

That's absolutely hilarious and I love it.

In casual conversation, "DeeDeeGee it" is so much more clunky.

In U.S. Navy and NATO jargon, "DDG" is the designator for guided-missile destroyers (warships) [0]. So you could say "destroy it" ....

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_missile_destroyer

Interesting! I had no idea.

Some might be partial to "I'd Duck that"

The best Ducking search engine available.

I just say "web search it." Same syllables as Google. Devoid of any brand preference.

Same syllables sure but there has to be a hard stop between the two syllables since b and s can’t be strung together.

The two words can be strung together just fine in English. Think of the word "rub", then "rubs", then "rubs search", then "rubsearch". The final 'b' in "web" is indeed pronounced differently when linked to the word "search".

For more discussion see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_(phonology)

Page 10 of http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/donegan/Papers/201Xhistph...

They can but it's more difficult on a muscle level. You have to change the position of your tongue quite a bit to alter the airflow transitioning from the bilabial plosive to the sibilant, versus "Google" where you can almost say the G-L transition without moving your mouth; just a very slight adjustment of your uvula and tongue can produce an understandable sound.

Try saying "web search" without moving your mouth. Now try saying "google" without moving your mouth.

It is not normal English for a "b" at the end of a word to get assimilated into the "s" at the start of the word.

(Note also that when you say "rubs", the "b" is not getting assimilated - it's the "s" that is getting assimilated into a voiced "z")

I can't wait to start saying "Go Duck yourself", and have it meant to be a request / complement to search your own name.

"Let me duck that for you" might get a few doubletakes.

Let's start saying "duck off" to the ill-informed

duck.com will surely inspire the sick dolan[0] crowd

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed3-vC2z7hI

"ducking the issues" would finally be a good thing

I’m feeling ducky

I came here for this. Not disappointed.

My phone's autocorrect would love this. :D

I’ll Duck Hunt it

I can how that would be abused, as in: go duck yourself

Edit: somebody beat me to it.

The obvious auto-correct problems on iOS devices will be amazing for marketshare expansion.

It's not the number of syllables, it's the particular flow of those syllables and the number of full stops. I'm sure there's a linguistic term for what I mean. Consider "I'll just Googlify it" or "I'll just Dodogo it", which both sound better than "I'll just DuckDuckGo it".

You could also say, "I'll just duckduck it"

The linguistic term is actually just a "stop", though you can use occlusive or plosive to sound fancy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_consonant

Perhaps also a case of the Bouba/kiki effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect) - people assuming the nature of words because of how they sound.

Euphony: http://literary-devices.com/content/euphony

Just duck it.

I just say "I'm going to search for x" now and avoid the company name entirely.

Although as noted by a person responding here "I'll duck it" wouldn't be bad.

I'm not sure how regional this is, but at least around the North of England that'd be interpreted as someone saying they were trying to avoid something.

English is not my native language, but I think this is universal. I also think that's why the GP likes the phrase.

"Google it" kinda came out organically. But it was very cringy when Microsoft forced to popularize the term "Bing it" and did product placements in TV shows and movies.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfHuZ5qrYX4

DDG will never reach some groups without a rebrand. I once installed Firefox on my folks's PC and changed the browser to DDG. My mum opened it instead of Chrome by mistake and said something like

> WTF is this duck thing? Where's Google?

I think that wouldn't have happened if it had a more serious name.

That said, my two-year old loves the yellow Cyberduck icon on my desktop Mac, and asks me to make it bounce (i.e. launch it from the Dock) whenever he sees it...

Eh. People mocked Google's name when they were gaining dominance. "Sounds like baby noise, not a serious company" seemed to be the dominant take of those with that view at the time.

I think there's something to three-word names being less memorable than shorter ones, especially when there isn't a clearer hint to function built in.

Whats hard about saying "Its a search engine like google, only it doesn't track you. Try it."?

Judging from the Wii and the iPad, people will get used to any brand name, no matter how ridiculous it sounds initially.

In terms of names it's the GoDaddy of search engines.

I didn't understand that.

GoDaddy manages to seem even more of a cheesy web 1.0 company than they are because of the name. It's like a TV ad company for the whole family, not something a programmer would find pleasing to behold.

> It's like a TV ad company for the whole family

I thought it was more of a sleaze connotation than a family one.

There's just something about "Daddy" in a company name I can't get over.

To me GoDaddy always sounded like the moniker a pimp would use.

Except GoDaddy actively tries to maintain that perception, while I don’t see DuckDuckGo doing the same.

i allways thought of it as a play on duck duck goose(which has some interesting connotations and in this context). it is good they got duck.com and makes sense in recognition and a simple and easy name is good to if thats there intent.

"watscheln" in german, "waddle" in english.

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