My Googlewhacks
This article is mentioned in my response to Chris, wrote in about interesting
research
at Cambridge into
spelling.
Never heard of octopi jujitsu? Try Goglewhacking
(Recreation/puzzles/offbeat)
LONDON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - A new phenomenon is emerging on the Internet and like all geekish fads it involves terms seldom, if ever, heard elsewhere, such as "cuneiform meatspace" and "carburettor logotype".
The game is called "Googlewhacking" and is the invention of some search-obsessed fans of Google.com, the search engine that has an index of over three billion Web pages.
The object of Googlewhacking is simple enough. A participant types two words into the Google search line with the hopes of pulling off a single search result.
If you see "Results 1-1 of 1" appear under a Google search -- congratulations! You're a winner (and you clearly don't have enough work to do).
Googlewhacking is more difficult than it looks. Google's massive database updates constantly, thus making the solitary search result more and more elusive.
And, of course, if your Googlewhack is subsequently recorded anywhere online it is forever nullified as a Googlewhack since future searches would pull up multiple results, one of the maddening challenges of the pastime.
Confused?
Take "cuneiform meatspace," a Googlewhack ostensibly coined last month by an Internet user. A search on Monday, triggered three search results for "cuneiform meatspace," thus ending its brief life as a successful whack, or "uniwhack".
Various Web sites, including Unblinking.com, explain Googlewhacking in detail, replete with rules for the uninitiated, trivia and examples from the Googlewhack lexicon such as "octopi jujitsu".
The origin of Googlewhacking is a bit nebulous. It appears to be the brainchild of American, Gary Stock, an admitted searchaholic.
In January, Stock wrote in an email to some friends which was subsequently posted on Web message boards. In it, he admitted he'd "gotten addicted to looking for combinations of common words which have the lowest incidence of appearance on Web pages, as indexed by Google".
"So far, I have yet to find a set of two common English words which do not appear together on any Web pages," he continued, thus throwing down the gauntlet and sparking a new phenomenon.
Reuters got in on the act on Monday, coining "coriander wonk" (after countless attempts).
(extract from Reuter's "Oddly Enough")
http://www.reuters.com
My googlewhack candidates:
From index
