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Google's Perspicacity

Why yes, I am going to mention every little advance from Google that I hear about; thank you for asking. I seems that Google now searches for synonyms - though it ironically knows no synonyms for synonym, nor for thesaurus. Just prepend any word with a tilde (~) and Big G (the other big G - the one that exists) will search for the word or its synonyms. To see only the synonyms, search for '~%s -%s', where %s is any word.

Strangely, it seems to think that the only alternative for 'frog' is 'froggy', but a search for 'toad' yields 'frog'. Don't ask how I came upon that example.

Coolness aside, this could be useful for help/tutorials/guides/faqs which are all considered synonyms. And yes Google considers Sofa and Couch to be synonyms.

Comments:
Thu, 04th Dec 2003 (17:14)

How did you come upon that example?

by stephen
Sat, 06th Dec 2003 (18:59)

man I love google. I went there and had another name searching fest. guess who came up tops for joleary? take that atlantic city! hee hee hee

by Djinn
Mon, 08th Dec 2003 (12:22)

stupid change. Why cant everything stay the same. like my constant drinking. See. Constant. Never changing.

by Djinn
Mon, 08th Dec 2003 (00:41)

I'm going to guess John O'Leary, of http://www.joleary.it/. Am I right?

by Rory
Wed, 10th Dec 2003 (17:22)

If Google considers sofa nad couch to be synonymous, that's Google's problem: who's ever heard of a psychiatrist's sofa? it all just goes to show that you can't trust a bot to do a man's work. The confusion that arises is a result of the fact that we are not always entirely clear on what is a man's work and what isn't. Nevertheless, I'm all for Google's hiring a load of people (not necessarily men) to respond to my search requests: then they'll have everything… what do you mean it's at "http://answers.google.com/"? I see… well then, I guess Google does have everything… Damn.

by Stephen

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This piece was posted on Thu, 04th Dec 2003 at 15:32.

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