The Hindu Business Line : Warring with words

SUPPOSE you'd gone online about five years or so ago, the chances are that you would have carried out your searches on Yahoo! and, when that didn't work, experimented with Alltheweb, AltaVista, Excite and so on.

And then, one fine day, somebody would have told you about Google search and you would have tried it.... and experienced a cyber-epiphany! The Mountain View, California-based search engine had — and still has — a truly awesome index of Web pages. Some three billion Web pages, the last time anyone bothered to count! And growing...

The thing is that Google runs on a unique combination of hardware and software. It's got a highly efficient search algorithm and thousands of low-cost networked PCs, both of which make for efficiency and blinding speed.

Given the near cult status achieved by Google — and the irreverence that characterises many Webheads — it was only a matter of time before someone got around to having fun with the search engine.

Which is precisely what Gary Stock, Web entrepreneur, online commentator and free spirit at large is doing with a competitive sport called....Googlewhacking.

Googlewhacking is very, very simple. And good, clean fun. What you've got to do is find a combination of two words or search terms that generate a single result on Google. That's when you get the words `Results 1-1 of 1' in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.

Sicklemia umbrella, for instance. Or levorotation plan. Both these, incidentally, have been worked out by Naveen Makineni of Mumbai.

There are, literally, thousands of Googlewhacks. Polecat jellified. Silliest guavas. Humped muffuletta. Kickback contrapuntally. And so on and so forth.

Stock has laid out some basic rules for keeping score. One point for a Googlewhack, meaning a single result for a query. One point if you learn something in the process. And a bonus point if the result makes you laugh.

The quirky thing about Googlewhacking is that it's ephemeral. That's because success breeds failure in Googlewhacking: When you find a whack and report it online, that page will soon be crawled by Google and the Googlewhack will lose its uniqueness. As Stock himself has reported, "The day I created the word `Googlewhack,' it was a Googlewhack... Not anymore.''

But, as Stock has pointed out, that needn't be a downer. You can still use Googlewhacking for research projects and get answers to questions like "What did the Sumerians see in those pictographs'' The answer is "Cuneiform meatspace.'' Some other instances....

Q. What's the only way to defeat both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan at once?

A. Octopi jujitsu.

Q. What does Linus Torvalds consider his greatest achievement?

A. Eponymic linux.

The Net is very here and now in its worldview and it is, therefore, inevitable that Enron figures in Googlewhacking somewhere. What Stock has done on Googlewhack.com is compile whacks — and worked backwards to frame questions (which he calls FAQs) relating to these whacks.

Here are some examples:

Whack: Ambidextrous scallywags.

FAQ: What do you call Enron corporate officers who contributed money to Senators on both the left and the right?

Whack: Illuminatus ombudsman.

FAQ: Who can you complain to about the worldwide cover-up of the Enron conspiracy?

Whack: Inculcating skullduggery.

FAQ: What priority item led every agenda at Enron's board meetings?

Whack: Bamboozle guzzler.

FAQ: What was the most popular mixed drink at Enron's corporate Christmas parties?

Whack: Megalomaniacal dipsomaniac.

FAQ: After the party, how did the club bartenders describe Enron's top corporate officials?

Get the idea?