Googlettes

Continuing my morbid fascination with the search strings that people use to arrive at this blog, I feel that a word is needed for these often spectacularly odd phrases. I'm toying with "googlettes", but I'm not committed.

There are, of course, a couple more odd googlettes to mention today. Strikingly, both appeared on the same day, within hours of each other. Beyond that, I see no connection except that each googlette led here. They were:

I would like to write brilliant and biting satirical bagatelles on these topics, but my mind is so confounded that it remains blank. My first thought is to wonder what could possibly be going through these peoples' minds — my second thought is to shy away from knowing, because it might disrupt my own tenuous sanity to peek at their thought processes. "Contraceptive doilies" sounds like it could only have come from some Monty Python "Bulgarian Phrasebook" sketch* played in reverse.

By the way, a Google search for "googlette" turns up "about" 496 references# (and few of them look like they come from independent sources), but the predominant use of the word (to mean "a start-up subsidiary of Google, the company") is far less useful than my proposal. Besides: only 496 references can easily be surpassed.
———-
*"My nipples explode with delight", etc.

#I have been amused for some time at how vestigial old-habits since the common use of digital watches have led to a request for the current time getting a response like "about three-seventeen". What's "about" about it?

Posted on June 2, 2006 at 15.41 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Curious Stuff, Such Language!

5 Responses

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Saturday, 3 June 2006 at 00.24
    Permalink

    Contraceptive doilies, I seem to recall, were proposed at the same Vatican conclave that came up with the infamous "Vatican position" for lovemaking: back to back.

    Ahem.

    On your "about 3:17 observation," my pet peeve is the term "the general public." Is there any other kind? Ever heard reference to a "private public" or even a semi-public public? No, it's just excess verbiage, as entrenched in our culture as manic hype for such lowest-common-denominator bilge as "American Idol."

  2. Written by snowqueen
    on Sunday, 11 June 2006 at 20.26
    Permalink

    I share your fascination. The most bizarre one I received for my blog in recent times is:
    considering+woman+to+be+a+beauty+and+ignoring+her+brilliantly+in+the+arabian+gulf

    I suppose I could google it myself and see what comes up, but somehow I prefer living with the mystery.

    Nice blog by the way – though I am a little intrigued by the juxtaposition of ars hermaneutica with a site selling rosaries, but hey, who am I to judge! :-)

    Oh – and I am the person who came to your site via a search for 'turning 50'.

  3. Written by jns
    on Wednesday, 14 June 2006 at 22.59
    Permalink

    Snowqueen: thanks, then, for searching for "turning 50" — it's been a surprisingly popular search string so far as I can tell. Is there a lot of anxiety about it? I don't know whether I want to be a google authority (which may need another word coined for it), but I don't particularly mind, I suppose.

    I am happy to be the cause of intrigue that results from juxtaposing "Ars Hermeneutica" with "Pansy Forest", where Isaac sells his rosaries and I sell my crocheted doilies. To those who know us well, this juxtaposition seems quite unremarkable; deduce what you will from that.

  4. Written by Bearcastle Blog
    on Sunday, 2 July 2006 at 00.53
    Permalink

    Still Valid after all These Years

    I'm afraid I can't really help myself. This remarkable little googlette came my way:

    Is the Uncertainty Principle still valid?

    Were this a joke, the obvious punch line would be:

    Not sure.

    I know, I know — perhaps later we'll have a lear…

  5. Written by Bearcastle Blog » Today's Best Googlettes
    on Wednesday, 20 June 2007 at 17.03
    Permalink

    […] Today, within the space of an hour, two different people arrived at my blog with these googlettes: grinch eyebrow song interactive dildo game Can there be any greater recommendation than that […]

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