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Leave nothing unsaid

Photo: S. Subramanium

Let’s try something brand new Tracking the less trodden path is the in thing

Now, let’s play a game. On Google. Nothing really big is necessary. The only qualification, if you could put it that way, is that you have no real clue what to do with yourself at this moment.

This fad started when Gene Weingarten of Washington Post started typing in for his column. He wanted “to find a phrase or expression that is not out there somewhere on the Web.”

Whatever he typed, Google search engine retuned the hits. He got frustrated that “someone somewhere” was coming up with the same epistemological curveballs he was throwing. It’s probably that somebody is arranging the alphabet the same way you are arranging. Does that mean the death of originality? Does that mean we plagiarize whatever we write? The answer depends on the view.

But to return to these nopes, Gene writes: “Want a phrase that doesn’t appear on Google? Try searching for the Magritte-inspired epistemologically impossible sentence: “This phrase doesn’t appear on Google.” You should find only one hit, and that hit is from the very paragraph you are reading. When I wrote this, before it was archived, that sentence was nowhere on the Web.”

He called the thing “Googlenope.” They are “original phrases that, when entered between quote marks in the Google search engine, return no hits.” The fun is, once a phrase is a Goolenope, then it ceases to be that because it is archived, and/or, invariably gets written about after that.

Gene had many Googlenopes on that day: Queen Elizabeth’s buttocks; I believe dust mites have souls;

I was helped by the federal government; I (heart) my zygote;

. . . that nappy-headed ho, Barbara Bush; Next, boil the toast . . . ; Insufficient cellulite; George W. Bush’s subtlety;

The thing is to get really weird phrases, outrageously outlandish phrases out into Google search engine. Then the fun begins. It often turns into obsession. As you try the phrases that get no hits, weird combinations of words pop up in your head. While you are at inventing these phrases that are really wacky, funny, and clever, you can also post them on Googlenope.com . Gene started the reader contest site so the other site visitors give you rating for the funniness of the Googlenope.

Just see the fun of some sample entries:

“How do I install a virus on my computer?”

“Once again, my husband was right and I was wrong.”

“Fun with your septic tank”

The others are at it too:

Animal testing of humans; addicted to Googlenopery ; Can you spare a dime, asked Bill Gates; For a good time, call Al Gore; Bravery among Frenchmen.

There is the other category called googleyup -- Phrases that, however improbably, already are out there somewhere.

Googlenope: fashionably dressed dental hygienist

Googleyup: fashionably dressed ho

Googleyup: There is nothing I would change about my life.

Googlenope: There is nothing I would change about my hair.

The goal, as he says, is to create “a world in which nothing has been left unsaid. For a googlenope, type in (your name): The Lord of the Universe.

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