Some days, it is probably better not to share one’s thoughts.
As I sat daydreaming positively at my desk, I wondered how my search for truth was coming along.
I know, I’ll search for truth on Google!
This turns out to be the worst idea I have had all day: I get “about 57,300,000 results (0.07 seconds)”. Perhaps I need to refine my search?
Anyway, here is the screenshot:
This reminds me of how I used to search the internet for words in context when all that was available were 28 bps modems. Does anyone remember the days when you could only have one Internet page open at any one time? And how you could click on a link, go and make coffee and drink half of it before the page loaded? And then it was the wrong page?
Yes, children, this is all true.
So, let’s summarise page 1 of the results:
- We have an advert for God – or thoughts about God. Fair enough.
- Wiki is at the top of the pile – again. That never used to be the case.
- How come cigarettes are relevant to everything – even truth?
- Fourth in line: a dictionary definition. Actually, one of my favourite online dictionaries. The Visual Thesaurus® is on my wish list.
- Another favourite: hardware stores, but not relevant to my current search for truth.
- I did not know that there was a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I wonder if it has been published in hard copy? It would make an excellent coffee-table, all on its own, I should think. A coffee-table book upon which to stack coffee-table books. 🙂
- Free Merriam Webster. 23 entries found. That sure beats the 57.3 million options Google gave me.
- I can use my own BS-detector to figure out the bona fides of a forwarded e-mail, thanks all the same.
Quite plainly, page 1 of this particular Google search has not been fruitful from the point of landing truth at my doorstep, so to speak. Note to self: save the Stanford link for a very rainy day.
Who was it who said that “the truth is out there; you just have to find it”?
I am off to read something thought-provoking now!
Allison
That elusive pair of jeans 
Magnificent! A Google search for truth… 57 million results.
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Truth, like Love, it would seem, “is a Many-Splendored Thing”, as the song claims. 😉
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And do you remember when you could enclose two words in inverted commas and the search would be for only those two words together, instead of millions of results for anything containing either of the words? Do you remember when you could use the word NOT to exclude a particular catergory in a search? Oh those were the days when searching was easy and far less frustrating – but definately found less results.. And that’s the truth!
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Is that an incorrect spelling of definitely?
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Yes, definitely. There are definitely no authorised variant spellings of definitely, even though “kewl” has made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. (Unkewl, in my view). There is also a typographical error contained in “category”.
If Sheila would like, I see I have the power to edit comments.
In this forum, however, I prefer not to mess with other people’s words.
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I loved those inverted commas, and NOT. Especially NOT. “No” was the first word I ever uttered as a child. And that’s the truth, according to my mother!
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Well, I’ll be horn-bloggled……….the mind bloggles. tRuTh can also be a little bent now and again. It’s all in the way people look at it. One man’s truth is the other man’s fiction (or is that friction?) words, wurds words..ha ha
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Google itself tells us that we should only use “Google” as an adjective, as in “I did a Google search”, or as a noun, referring to the entity, the thing, as in “Google is a mega-search engine with no brain”.
That is all very well and good. Most times, however, I mistype and end up with “Goggle”, possibly because this is actually a real English word which existed before Google came along.
I also am one who advances the theory that “google” is better suited to being used as a verb, as in, “I was busy googling for alien zombies when one appeared right before my very eyes.”
All this preamble, dear Grace, to reply to your comment: I still feel well and truly goggled (past participle of v.t. google, as normally typed by me)!
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I’m still laughing!
You are so re-blogged!
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Thanks!
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Ah, subjective truth… Such a trustworthy world we live in 🙂 Great post.
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Thanks Godgirl,
Now that you mention it, Aldous Huxley had some interesting things to say on “absolute truth” and the “Absolute”, which is in one of his essays written in the 1930s. Sorry about the vagueness; this is what happens when you emigrate and give 98% of your books away, and you refer to something you read 30 years ago. 🙂 Here is a link from Amazon (you might find something free, or in the public domain elsewhere): http://www.amazon.com/dp/156663394X?tag=wordtradeco0c-20&link_code=as2&creativeASIN=156663394X&creative=374929&camp=211189
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Really awesome post! Carry on…
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