[March 30 edition of leading German weekly "Die Zeit"](http://www.zeit.de/2006/14/Gaga-Sprache) is mentioning "Skype" as one of the expressions that will make it into general vocabulary as the synonym for internet telephony. Here's the synopsis.

> The article reports about the work of scientist Lothar Lemnitzer at the [University of Tuebingen](http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/) in the field of computer-aided linguistics, who is observing the change and growth of language. At the website [www.wortwarte.de](http://www.wortwarte.de), Lemnitzer collects all newly created expressions and words. His results show that new things always require new expressions. When it comes to internet telephony, Lemnitzer sees two favourites that will make it into the German language: “Skypen” (for “to talk via skype”) and “Voipen” (for “to talk via VoIP”). These results came by running a special linguistics software that tracks down all online articles of newspapers and magazines on the internet for new expressions.

Cool stuff. Although if you're running a business, there are actually some reasons to control and limit the use of your brand name or trademark in people's speech, crazy as it sounds. So it's a balancing act. But whether we like it or not, people are talking about "skyping" all over the place and we can only rejoice about that. While we're at it, why not add some [Skype buttons](http://www.skype.com/go/skypebuttons) to places where you haven't yet added them

The only question is, is there really such a verb as "to voip"? In German apparently there is, but in English? I can certainly see people going "Skype me up"... "let's Skype later"... sure. But "I will voip you tomorrow"? "she voiped me the other day and then I voiped back and it was all one big happy voiping"??? Ummmmm... no.