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Introducing... Googlephrasing
Following up on last week's column, Google = Good Experience, this week I add another creative use of Google: the googlephrase.
Several such Google-related activities are already in action:
- googlisms
- google bombing
- googlewhacking
- and most recently, Google Rankings.
...and I'm now going to add another Google-related activity to the list.
Introducing... googlephrasing.
It's easy. Search Google for a long, slightly obscure sentence fragment, enclosed in quotes, and then revel in the Web-zeitgeist.
A few examples:
1. Googlephrase "i've always wanted to go to"...
Boston (she has no idea why)
South East Asia
Italy (he has a huge Italian family)
San Francisco (to study ESL)
Jamaica (for a honeymoon)
Bahamas
The Great Barrier Reef (to go swimming there)
2. Googlephrasing "is the best movie i've ever seen in my life" brings back a range of movies - all recent, but at wildly different levels of quality: Lord of the Rings, 8 Mile, American Wedding, Moulin Rouge, Life is Beautiful, Varsity Blues, Gladiator, 1492, The Matrix, and Pearl Harbor.
On the other hand, Googlephrasing "is the worst movie i've ever seen in my life" has votes for "Girl, Interrupted", In the Cut, The Sixth Sense, Cat in the Hat, and (quite unfairly) Master and Commander.
3. Googlephrase "surprisingly, i actually liked"...
Mozart's Symphony No. 30
Bon Jovi playing Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."
the movie "Tomb Raider"
country singer Tweedy better than country singer Ferrar
the video game "The Hulk"
4. Googlephrase "there's absolutely no reason to believe"...
...a Washington Post article about Afghanistan
...that drag racers will police themselves
...that a woman in a bank robbery was anything but a victim
...that Macs won't become "better, faster, and cheaper."
I, for one, have never doubted drag racers' integrity.
Such is the Web: eclectic, strange, and very, very random. Thanks to Google for pointing it out to us!
Update April 14, 2004:
Two weeks ago I wrote about googlephrasing...
Here are entries from Good Experience readers. Thanks to all!
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From Matt Dobschuetz:
Googlephrase "I have a confession to make, I"...
... I didn't start Atkins this week like I'd planned to. And I've
been craving chocolate again.
... I recently purchased a 1:24 Welly (shudder) diecast of a 2002
Camaro SS in black. My confession is, I love this car.
... I have a fetish for women with tattoos. I never really admitted
it before, but it's true.
... I own an SUV.
... I bought a pop song from iTunes... and I like it.
... I am the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times.
... I don't recycle.
... I am addicted to googlephrasing. (I added this one.)
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From CJ Cramer:
Googlephrase "why don't you go"...
... ask Hosni Mubarak.
... home early?
... Get A Life
... put on a dress and bake me some cookies you sissy
... to church - what can we do differently to help you?
... back to KS, so we can move onto more productive subjects
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From J N Richman:
Googlephrase "why don't they tell you"...
...up front?
...mammogram not good for everyone?
...why you have a moon on top of your mosque
...about the administrators who are driving around in Mercedes Benz
convertibles or Porches, while their staff are generally underpaid
...that this year's rating was, "what a disappointment"
Googlephrase "why don't they"...
...practice what we preach?
...want us to kneel at Mass?
...look for the mole? One top spook is calling his boss a liar and
no one seems to care.
...Learn English?
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From Oliver Brewis:
Googlephrase "the meaning of life is"...
... to increase fitness
... a bet. Who can live the longest?
... life's Meaning
... that it stops
Oliver concludes, "I think this selection of quotes amply
illustrates the intellectual wonder that is the internet. Who needs
Nietzsche?"
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One writer suggests expanding googlephrasing: "I hereby propose to pile two more Google-derived neologisms onto the word-hoard: googletheming and googlerheming. Undertaken in combination, these two activities offer a sort of discourse-structural parallaxóif you will, a view of the 'Web-Zeitgeist' through 3-D glasses."
My brain isn't big enough to understand that, but if you're interested, here it is.
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From Mark Doro:
Googlephrasing "I never intended to"...
... quit
... give Brianna away
... to take a gap year
... kill anybody
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From Shiloh Bucher:
Googlephrasing "I'm fascinated by" ...
... the documents swirling around Britney Spears.
... rap and hip-hop.
... the concept of a Web Fridge
... what you're saying. [snort]
... post-modernism in a horrified sort of way.
... languages, even though I only speak English. I'm single, but I'd rather not be.
... the latest marketing techniques, and I've always wanted to be in a position where I can develop my own.
Shiloh concludes, "There are so many more... check them out. It's hilarious how difficult it is to use the phrase without coming across as a pompous a--."
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Jeremy Esland:
Googlephrase "The thing I hate most in the world is"...
...playing drinking games
...selfishness
...spiders
...getting made fun of
...being around liars
...when young kids write books
...regretting NOT doing something
...catagories [sic]. genres. anything like that
...being legitimately despised
Googlephrase "The thing I love most in the world is"...
...the view of the sea out of my bedroom window
...right next to me
...just sitting and listening to records
...sports
...is not you. it is sleeping
...Manchester City FC
Jeremy concludes, "It would be tempting to pass judgement on any of these individuals, or indeed on human society as a whole... but the thing I hate most in the world is people who judge others. ;-) "
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From Jan Reisen:
Googlephrasing "i wish i could"...
... fly.
... forget.
... bring you to the Lord
... shimmy like my sister Kate
... swim with the sharks
... see Bakersfield
... horde weapons of mass destruction and get nothing more than wrist-slaps from the United Nations.
... give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates.
... be like my cells.
... spell George Schlossnagle without copy-and-paste.
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Charles Warren writes:
I tried 'hates George Bush' and came up with Howard Dean, Hootie
and the Blowfish, Kim Il Jong II, Larry Flynt, Slim Shady,
Hollywood, everyone in Canada, and God!
To keep things balanced, I googlephrased "loves George Bush" and got ...
... Clark
... Jesus
... Fox News
... Kentucky
... Rosie O'Donnell [quoted in November 2001]
... Giuliani
... A critical part of America
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From Tara Calishain:
As sort of an addition to Googlephrasing, try Cliche-Go-Round. Enter a phrase and it'll search for all iterations of that phrase, minus one word at a time.
(Tara is author of the book "Google Hacks.")
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Bob Ryskamp points out that "my favorite is 'Say what you like about', because it's almost always spoken right before saying something ludicrous."
Googlephrase "Say what you like about" ...
... Eminem
... the outcome of this election
... cheese eating
... extreme sports games
... security vendors
... Howard the Duck ("...the soundtrack wasn't half bad.")
... Prince Andrew
... Mel Gibson
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And my own addition, one of my pet peeves - the misuse and overuse of the word "literally":
Googlephrasing "it is quite literally"...
... the poorest excuse for a video game
... mind-stretching [referring to infinity]
... overwhelming [referring to "my first day in Rome"]
... a fractional power of the ordinary Fourier Transform
... making sure to always "tell the system what it wants to hear"
To rant a bit: None of these entries are figures of speech or metaphors, so all of these entries are misuses of the word! What's more, the word "quite" should never appear with "literally," since there aren't degrees of being literal. Ahh well.
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See also: Revisiting the Googlephrase, four years later
