Google Books Search - erratic behavior

[Jonathan Lighter]

My recent experience has been similar.

JL

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Google Books Search - erratic behavior
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Joel S. Berson wrote
> > Can anyone explain the flawed and inconsistent Google Book search
> > results when a time period is specified?  E.g., if I ask for "1700 -
> > 1799", I find "dull as ditchwater" at 1747; if I ask for "1600 -
> > 1799", GBooks says none.  Or if I ask for "any time - 1910", GBooks
> > alleges that it appears in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (and
> > no other book)?
>
> The results returned when performing searches in Google Books are
> inconsistent, inaccurate, and illogical. The situation has
> deteriorated in recent weeks in my opinion.
>
> Using time bounds in queries causes erratic behavior in Google Books.
> Now all the big Google databases are afflicted: Google Books, Google
> News and Google Groups. One must guess what the search algorithm is
> doing (or not doing) and try to develop workarounds, apparently.
>
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