Vargas exit provokes debate, unease

The English were googling, after all, back about 1380, when the word was a variant spelling of goggle, to squint or "turn the eyes to one side or the other" according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Google could still be spelled that way in 1576, when Thomas Newton used it to mean "cause to shake," describing a weakness that "googleth their unstayed heads." Goggle became the common spelling, however, as the word evolved to mean "stare in disbelief" or "roll one's eyes."

The OED claims that google for goggle is obsolete, and refuses to commit itself on whether the variations from the dawn of the 20th century -- google-eyed (wearing glasses), googly-eyed (staring), goo-goo eyes (sappy lovers' looks) -- are revivals or new creations. But either way, they predate the googol by decades; the googly rolling peepers we associate with the "Sesame Street" crowd were familiar in America by the `20s, when the dictionary records an allusion to "movable googly eyes in hand-painted faces."

Then along came Barney Google, the cartoon character born in 1919 and still googling strong, if only as an occasional visitor to his comic-strip mate Snuffy Smith; Barney's bulging orbs were commemorated by Billy Rose in the 1923 song about "Barney Google, with his goog- goog- googley eyes." Google seekers must also take note of the century-old sporting googly: In cricket, it's "an off break bowled with an apparent leg-break action," in the words of the Oxford Concise Dictionary. That is, the thrown ball looks as if it will break in one direction, but thanks to its spin it will actually break the other way. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/05/09/feelin_googly/

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