Sunday 27 May 2007

Quattrocento Ichtheology

What can part a Lexicon and her blog asunder for four days? Here's what:

Asunderer the First
Gainful employment. Dastardly business. The gainful bit's nice, though, and, y'know, short of remunerative professional otter tending, there's not much by way of employment I'd rather be doing.

Asunderer the Second
My new second-hand free telly. I spent a whole hour of my life this week watching America's Biggest Loser: The Engaged Couples Special (I'm not sure if Channel 10 actually stuck a colon in there, but given the digestive theme, it seems fitting). Two minutes in, and I was committed for the whole hour. Which engaged couple would publicly starve 'emselves to the victory of an NBC-sponsored $50, 000 wedding? Narrative drive doesn't get more subtle or compelling than that. Thank you, new second-hand free telly.

Asunderer the Third
Googlewhacking: for those not in the know (and unable to click on the link), you score yourself a googlewhack when two combined search terms (both recognised by the Google dictionary, i.e., appearing underlined in blue up in the top right hand corner of your search page) yield ONE (1), and ONE ONLY, googular hit. Not 1,630,000 hits, as in the case of "dog" and "banana". Not 0 hits, as in the case of "ichtheology" and "quattrocento". But ONE hit.

I had quite some success googlewhacking a few years ago, but evidently Google's purview has expanded somewhat since 2004, and it's jolly hard coming up with a couple of search terms that don't bring in the usual six-figure horde of results. Believe you me, I've been trying. "Bibliomaniacal" and "postcoital", "hydroponic" and "plesiosaurus", "superego" and "echidna". All rousingly well-represented lexical couplings, it seems.

Enter my cunning plan, the cunning plan that brings me straight back to the arms of my bonny blog. I can make my own googlewhacks. I just take "ichtheology" and "quattrocento", a coupling that has never before appeared on the same website; I write them down here; I publish my post. And bingo! If Isaac Newton was right, those two terms should now appear together on one - and one only - webpage.

9 comments:

JahTeh said...

Except now that you've done it, it's no longer a googlewhack.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Ah, I think I mustn't have been very clear. In fact, reading back, I can see that I wasn't clear at all. This morning, the "quattrocento" and "ichtheology" combo netted NO hits, but now that I've typed 'em, they score ONE hit, which be my googlewhack, all done up with a ribbon. In future, everyone who tries googling "quattrocento" and "ichtheology" will find themselves ON THIS PAGE.

This has to be my finest hour.

True, I don't get out much.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Only I now notice that "ichtheology" is not in the Google dictionary. Stupid Google.

Alextricity said...

I must say, it is just as well this blog is dedicated so to asunders because I was begining to doubt your health, being that so many days passed forsaken and unblogged!
hehe
YAY! Its assignment week - On the Alex calendar it is the the week of the zombie in the month of the undead, the year of the sleepless - woot!
Gah! I have however had a weekend full of working to keep me FRESH! lol
Employment IS is a dastardly business!
I love Biggest Loser! Sit there and do sit ups while its on :)
x

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

You do sit-ups while watching telly? Good grief! I haven't seen a sit-up in years. I'm aiming for a voluptuous middle-age, in a capacious purple toga.

Anonymous said...

(After a quick google) it works! I don't know though- I don't think the International Google-whacking Association would entirely approve of a google whack one sets up oneself. I'm sure that must contravene article 9f.

Yesterday I was at friendly house and the daughter had on "Project Runway". I sat down and watched it with her, although I was busy making my way through their wine at the time, so I only oohed and ahhed the dresses made from flowers and leaves in a desultory sort of way.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

I agree. It doesn't feel totally legit. And, as I belatedly realised this morning, the search results show "ichtheology" up in the right hand corner looking black, not blue, and un-underlined. It is not, as I confess above, in le Lexicon de Googlique. Heaven knows why.

Anonymous said...

It is a dilemma, isn't it? One wonders if the Google lexicon is determined by the number of references or the number of searches. Could "ichtheology" pass into Googlese if we all searched for it 3000 times? Such a mammoth effort by several different persons would certainly be legit. Or must we all write "ichtheology" on 3000 separate web pages, thereby destroying the google whack?

Google whacking would seem to be as impossible a dream as eating in bed!

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

I dunno. How does a word get itself into the Google dictionary these days? And why haven't people been looking up ichtheology? As you point out - above - sardines are very interesting.