Searching inside quotation books such as YBQ and other references (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Check also the Hathi Trust, which is the site maintained by libraries
who have made their collections available to Google Books.  Sometimes it
has more text available, or is otherwise easier to work with.

Amazon has a "search inside the book" feature which is helpful with many
books.

When Microsoft's search engine was called "live search", they had a
smaller collection similar to Google Books that I was able to use to my
advantage once or twice.  Now that they've reformatted everything into
"bing", I can't find that particular search.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Garson O'Toole
> Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 10:50 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Searching inside quotation books such as YBQ and other
> references
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
---------------
> --------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Searching inside quotation books such as YBQ and other
> references
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> I think Joel Berson raised a valuable point when he asked about
> finding a specific quotation within a large quote book using imprecise
> knowledge.
>
> > Does anyone recognize the following (or similar)?  I didn't find it
> in the YBQ.
> > "I only wish I knew as much about anything as he knows about
> everything."
>
> Fred Shapiro then helpfully answered with the appropriate quote.
>
> To search some reference books I use my browser. I have a bookmark to
> the Google Books instance of the reference I wish to search. For
> example, the YBQ is searchable and it gives page numbers. Many of the
> page images are blocked. I use my paper copy to look up pages when
> necessary.
>
> If you plug into the search box the two words: "anything",
> "everything" then the quote sought above is the sixth result out of
> 31. Unfortunately some references have sharply restricted access and
> this strategy does not work for them.
>
> Garson O'Toole
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org