As much fun as cow tipping?

I have been swept into the craze. Like all good, hollow-eyed addicts, I seek to drag my friends to the same ruinous end. In short, I have discovered Googlewhacking. It may be even more fun than cow tipping, if that is possible.

The basic rules are as follows:

1) Enter a pair of words into the Google search engine. Do not place the words within quote marks. Google promises to search 2,073,418,204 web pages for you and to return every instance where those two words appear somewhere in the page. They do not need to appear adjacent to one another to produce a search "hit".

2) If Google returns a search result of one web page and one page only (the top right corner reads: Results 1 - 1 of 1."), that word pair comprises a googlewhack.

There is an optional, but relatively non-controversial, addendum to these rules. In cyberspace there are many web pages that are simply long lists of alphabetized words and nothing more. The most catholic of Googlewhackers accept that a search result where only one page shows the word pair occurring in real text, while the remainder show them appearing in one of these word lists, then the single result where the pair of words appear within actual text counts as a valid whack.

For example, the word pair, bedlamite quodlibet, returns two search hits, but one is a mere vocabulary list. The other, as you may suspect, is a minor miracle.

The most stringent of Googlewhackers laugh this rationalization to scorn. For them, there is one true whack: 1 - 1 of 1.

I wish you all whacking good whacking.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 20, 2002

Answers

Aimless, you are a joy. You ought to be declared a World Heritage Site. Indeed, for all we know, you already have been.

Allow me to present you with my inaugural Googlewhack: ‘jibing fleering’.

The only place where Google can find this well-matched pair is on our own ‘What do you think of it so far?’ page, as part of the inaugural posting from our inestimable colleague and mentor Laureate Cibber.

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 20, 2002.

One qualified pairing I found just now is: squamous dalliance

As for being a World Heritage Site, I was offered the post, but refused it after discovering that it involved a great deal of ceremonial ribbon cutting, baby-kissing, public blathering, and all that sort of rot. As my father always said, a man can't hold a gigantic pair of scissors and keep his dignity at the same time. I gave them the phone number of the local television weatherman, as being more tempermentally qualified for the job.

By the way, googlewhacking has an endemic difficulty. Revealing one's successful whack on a wweb page of any sort inevitably puts a lease on its life. The Google web crawler will one day unearth the reference and, lo, a second search hit shall disqualify it.

Googlewhacking afficianados worry somewhat over this, but otherwise maintain a stiff upper lip. It is as if the climbing of Chomolungma or Annapurna caused the mountain to vaporize soon afterward. To some extent, this is well and good. It eliminates the competition and dips the achievement in figurative bronze.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 20, 2002.

dadaist finagler

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 20, 2002.

Not strictly relevant, but readers may like to know that Ask A Drunk is currently the first thing that comes up on Google if you put quotation marks round the search terms ‘academic censorship’, ‘post- imperial justice’, ‘bring forth the body’, ‘men’s nipples’ and ‘Yuletide yarn’. We’re number two for ‘modern superstitions’ and number three for ‘Christmas books roundup’. Our penetration of global culture is now unstoppable.

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 20, 2002.

hilarious pampooties

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 20, 2002.

bosomy Oxfordian

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 21, 2002.

chasuble roundelay
laryngitis sacramentalism
googly flagellant

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 21, 2002.

cudding savages

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 21, 2002.

saprophytic Lapps

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 21, 2002.

facetious wayzgoose
antimacassar ptarmigan
leprous theodolite


-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 21, 2002.

bolly Zurnfest

-- san (he_mail@pakistans.com), February 21, 2002.

Spangler architraves.

-- Ned Sherrying (mike.morris@anthro.ox.ac.uk), February 21, 2002.

Progeria knave

(returns two, but sounds nice)

-- Uriah Heeped (mike.morris@anthro.ox.ac.uk), February 21, 2002.

AMPUTATED ENGLEBURTH

-- San (HE_MAIL@pakistans.com), February 21, 2002.

Macintyre's Wensleydale

-- Driveller (mike.morris@anthro.ox.ac.uk), February 21, 2002.

Rawlplug terror

...is sadly a dictionary page. Um. "Spurted piccalilli".

It's a shame there are no hits for "Mornington Crimewave". Now that would be a game.

-- Nice Mr. Cheat (mr_dickerson@beer.com), February 21, 2002.

Motherwell's Necronomicon Voracious Ahasverus

-- San (he_mail@pakistans.com), February 21, 2002.

Primula plectra.

One word list + one creative. Oddly,marsupial silage produces several hits.

Now can I get some work done?

-- Old Man of the CD Rom (mike.morris@anthro.ox.ac.uk), February 21, 2002.

I seriously doubt that anything anyone can think of isn't out there on the web already. I once entered 'www.shagnasty.com' for a giggle, and was directed to a page showing an animated goldfish!!!. I later found the page hijacked by a local cracking group.
I must go and try 'qwertyuiop' for a laugh.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), February 21, 2002.

See, told you!
I entered the first two word association football things I could think of, which were 'toad wrangling' and was directed HERE immediately.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), February 21, 2002.

stentorian dewlaps

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 21, 2002.

Are we all playing by the same rules, guys? The Googlewhacking site to which Aimless refers us requires that all words used must be traceable at dictionary.com – that is to say, they should appear underlined in the blue bar at the top of your Google results page.

Turning to other topics:

scrimping rotisserie invidious peristalsis assuaging picador

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 21, 2002.

Now to get rid of the bold. Or not, as the case may be…

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 21, 2002.

Always one to read the fine print, eh, Rex?

To my shock and horror, this site (that has the unmitigated gall to name itself "dictionary.com") has no cognizance of the perfectly presentable word, "pampooties". As anyone who has read J.M. Synge's Aran Islands is fully aware, pampooties are a sort of rawhide moccasin worn by many ruralites of Western Ireland at the time the book was written.

I protest! This is a scandal of the first water! I demand to see the headmaster - or the headwaiter.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 21, 2002.

storksbill necromancer

stereochromically intussusceptive

-- San (he_mail@pakistans.com), February 23, 2002.

pipistrelle chasuble - though I am waiting to hear from Peter Hain whether two English words returning a single hit upon a French language site can be regarded as a fair whack.

-- TRD (wellmeaning@hotmail.com), February 23, 2002.

prepossessing phylactery - occurs once in text, once in a wordlist. I shall whack it harder.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

tenebrous zippers

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

carthusian naugahyde

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

crapulous turnbuckle

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

blithering shiksas

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

gamboge virginal

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

happenstance finials

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

Pondweed bounciest

-- Delia Smith (bokanovsky@hotmail.com), February 23, 2002.

whinging calabash - NB: according to "dictionary.com", whinging is not a kown word.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

Pardon me - a known word.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

demisemiquaver polecat

-- Delia Smith (bokanovsky@hotmail.com), February 23, 2002.

platinum hemidemisemiquaver

-- Delia Smith (bokanovsky@hotmail.com), February 23, 2002.

plangent raspberries

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

saltwater factotums

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

cutesy portcullises

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

cantilevered omnivore

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 23, 2002.

You must understand that I’m an exceptionally busy man and I simply don’t have time to do stupid, futile, pointless, energy-wasting things like Googlewhacking.

Notwithstanding which: theosophical cantaloupe; shagging oleaginously; ineptly bedizened; matutinal visigoth.

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 23, 2002.

camphorated tintinnabulation

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 25, 2002.

foreshortened proctologist

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 25, 2002.

I have stumbled upon a Googlewhacking metaphysical . The pair of words, 'costive ironmonger', returns two URLs as hits, but the two web pages at those addresses are identical. Each contains a 101Kb excerpt of Samuel Pepys's Diary.

Are these two web pages consubstantial? If so, does 'costive ironmonger' comprise a spritual and metaphysical whack? I appeal the ruling to Rex, who seems well-versed in these mysteries.

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 25, 2002.

gor strewf guvna strike a bleedin light wotchoo fink oi am bleedin Metropolitan Patriarch sod vat for a basilica fulla monkeez ere oi ad vat dalai lama in backathakab once ’sept e woz in tibet at ve time you lookin ferra smak in ve gob or summink???

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 25, 2002.

P.S.: nugatory coelacanth; samovar yaws; methadone heresiarch; effulgent spatchcock; octuple sorghum; monophysite casserole; ectomorph novitiate; vandalizing ambivalently; barfing effeminately.

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 25, 2002.

I must protest. Samovar Yaws is the national poet of Madeupstahn and belittling him in this way is intolerable. If you want to improve your mind--and if you're Rex, you should--start with The Pocket Yaws (Viking, 1962 OP) and move on to A Brief Rumination With the Governer over a Game of Chess in Tashkent, his allegorical masterwork.

Julie Burchill adds "Stalin. He's cool. Daddio, what a funky moustache. Better than Mrs T, and that's saying a lot. The Beatles. Dont'cha just hate them???? With their Hard Day's Blackbird and their taking drugs in bed. I'm mental, me."

-- Melvyn Braggadocio (mike.morris@anthro.ox.ac.uk), February 26, 2002.

yclept lumpish
clabbered hyperspace
sacredotal anglers
trammeled alpinist
lubricious Cappadocian
unclad chatterbox
mephistphelean skirl
bedizened fantail
jacobine palaver

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 26, 2002.

unicycle chorister

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 26, 2002.

raunchy yeggs

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 26, 2002.

dropsical fisticuffs (produces one fine text, sadly encumbered by two worthless wordlists)

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 26, 2002.

natterjack lozenge
viridian caliper
heliograph simony
pelmet unction
heliotrope pessary
enchilada sou’wester
mullet orgiast
prinking macaroon
haver footpad
blistering scholiast
umlaut kedgeree
crumhorn margarine
anglepoise cistern
scalped narthex
tectonics wittering
geodesic hoplite
exhume piccalilli
aroint grizzly
dionysiac estrapade
trepanned knout
and my first two-monosyllable Googlewhack, tweeze cham!

-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), February 27, 2002.

myrmidon gumboots

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 28, 2002.

glabrous synecdoche

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), February 28, 2002.

serendipitous bakesale

-- Ron Hudson (ohronny@juno.com), February 28, 2002.

pictish kleptomania

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org), March 01, 2002.

suety fustian

-- Aimless (aimless@national_raffle_association.org),