Maybe Bush's problem was just that he used Google.....

[qatarperegrine]

I was just trying to look up something about Iraq's nuclear program in the '80s, so I Googled Iraq nuclear history.

Try it.

I often appreciate that Google searches for variants on the words we input -- that if I search for tutor conference, for example, I also get webpages that talk about tutoring conferences. But someone really needs to tell them that Iraq and Iran are not synonyms!

Update, 30 January: woot, they fixed it!

Comments

[gryphonwing.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, yes. That one's a bit worrying!

Bush

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

To quote Bush himself, he uses The Google. But yeah, WTF are those results supposed to mean?

Yet more proof that automatic heuristics ain't everything (like the 3rd result for 'Jew' is some neonazi bozo's site. It used to be 1st).

[roach2600.livejournal.com]

FYI, try "+iraq nuclear history".

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Is that how it does it, just by associating similar things that have been searched for together? I suppose the question here is whether this happened as a result of synonym matching or as a result of word stemming. I assumed it was stripping off the n and q as suffixes like it'd know to ignore the "ing" if I searched for "running." However, I guess if that were the case, ira nuclear history would turn up the same results, and it doesn't.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured that out eventually -- it's a good trick to know.

Can you comment on the above discussion of whether this is a result of synonym-matching or stripping? (And if there's anyway to give Google feedback when it associates things that it shouldn't?)

[roach2600.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing Leland is right - I know we used to do that for "did you know". I searched for "broiling salmon" one time and it asked me "did you mean grilling salmon?" I think we would do both stemming and related searches.

[roach2600.livejournal.com]

I'll bug the search history team tomorrow. Additionally, you can always click the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom of the search page.

Anyway, I LOLed.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_tove/]

Sometimes this has other interesting results as well.

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

Psychologically speaking I think that typing "Iran" when you mean "Iraq" -- or vice versa -- is actually a pretty natural mistake, at least for people who do searches on "nuclear history".
I've noticed I type the wrong word much more often these days. I never imagined it would start so soon.

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Do you think this is like when your parents call you by your sibling's name? I've never been sure whether they were suffering from early Alzheimers or some sort of stemming-related brainfart...

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

It's probably similar. I think you and I were probably a lot nicer about it than "Not Him" (scroll down aways) from last week's Prudence.

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Haa! Love it! Particularly the "one chink in your perfection" bit. I remember commenting to the parents that if they wanted not to mix us up, they might have considered picking names that didn't have the same first three letters. Then again, I said I'd never make the mistake of naming a child with such a long polysyllabic name, and I ended up with Benjamin... and I said I'd go to college to do something USEFUL, and ended up in Linguistics and Medieval History... irony's a b*tch, ain't it?