My husband invented a new verb today: Cozi. As in, “I won’t forget anything at the store, because I cozied it.”

Cozi is a noun - a great, online organizer. Did you know it's also a verb?

Cozi is a free, online organizer, and it’s awesome. It lets you set up a shared, family calendar so everyone knows when the kid’s music lessons are, what days Dad has to work (my husband’s hours are irregular), and when the critters need to be taken to the vet. Cozi also lets you set up To-Do lists, Shopping lists, and add things to a family journal. So if I think of a writing-related task I need to do while I’m at work, I can log on to the Cozi website and add it to my To-Do list. Even better, I can do this on my smartphone with the Cozi app, if I’m out and about, and not on my computer. No more worries about an unexpected chance to stop at the store, and forgetting something – it’s on Cozi.

Having worked in a marketing department for close to ten years in my previous life as a graphic designer, I’m probably more cognizant than most people of the proper, and not-so-proper use of trademarked names. While I’ve been guilty of asking for a Kleenex when the box clearly reads “Puffs,” I’ve never Xeroxed anything on a copier made by Konica-Minolta, and here in Ohio, a Coke is always Coca-cola (though I have ordered rum and Coke from a bar that served Pepsi products, because no one orders a “rum and cola”). I try not to cringe when someone mentions a “Romantica” novel that wasn’t published by Ellora’s Cave, or talks about making their own “book trailer.” Those are trademarked terms: if the book wasn’t published by EC, it’s simply erotic romance (or romantic erotica), and that book video is only a book trailer if it was produced by Circle of Seven Productions. Don’t even get me started on “iPhone” – I have a Droid, thankyouverymuch. My husband has an Android phone – his runs the Android OS, but it’s not a Droid-branded phone. Only Apple smartphones are iPhones.

So it follows when someone says they “googled” something on the Internet, I always got just a teeny bit annoyed. Because my understanding was that “Google” is a noun – a trademarked, proper noun at that. And what if the person was using Yahoo or Bing? (I know, I know, does anyone? Someone must, or else they wouldn’t still be around.)

After my husband’s turning Cozi into a verb, I was curious about that other, insidious noun-that’s-not-really-a-verb and decided to google the term “google.” Guess what – it’s in the dictionary. As a trademarked, proper noun… and a verb.

The Xerox corporation has made no secret of the fact that they’d much rather you photocopy, rather than Xerox, those tax papers for your mortgage processor, but in Google’s quest for Internet search domination, they have no problem with people googling stuff on the Internet. They’d much rather you google something than yahoo or bing it.

So it looks like I have to get over that one. As for Cozi? I’m glad my husband’s willing to use it (he’s not too fond of computers), so I think I’ll just quietly let him cozi whatever he wants.

Know of any funny verbs that aren’t really verbs? Or words you thought were only nouns, but actually are verbs? Please share!