new Google Books glitch

[Joel S. Berson]

I have the impression I'm seeing more false positives than earlier,
but I don't have solid evidence.

But that's with (Advanced) Search.  I've not seen anything like Jon's
Search Within a Book "glitch" ("phosphorus").  Except, of course,
when a Google "volume" contains several different books.  (Not the
case for the Melville, unless something is buried within it!)

At 3/28/2012 06:40 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>Actually, when I go into Advanced Book Search and run searches that
>I have run many times in the past, it looks like it is behaving much
>the same as it has.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
>________________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
>Shapiro, Fred [fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 6:27 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: new Google Books glitch
>
>This is all pretty distressing for those of us who try to use Google
>Books to find early uses of words, phrases, quotations, and
>proverbs.  Is there any kind of "advanced search" or "classic Google
>Books search" that evades the new fuzziness?
>
>It is beginning to seem that, once Hathi Trust gets past its own
>search problems and develops a more robust search capability, Hathi
>Trust will supplant Google Books as a tool for
>historical-lexicographical research.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
>________________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
>Stephen Goranson [goranson at DUKE.EDU]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 5:09 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: new Google Books glitch
>
>Yes, Google Book search has changed.
>First, apparently, it returns hits with synonyms of the search words.
>Second, apparently, it returns, e.g., phrases found in recent
>reviews of classic books, listing the book rather than the review as
>the source.
>These attempts to be helpful, to me, are not.
>
>Stephen Goranson
>http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>_______________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
>Garson O'Toole [adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 10:04 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: [ADS-L] new Google Books glitch
>
>The results generated by the Google search engine have, I think,
>changed noticeably during the past two months. The match algorithm has
>been updated so that it now performs some kind of indirect association
>mapping to generate more matches.
>
>When one performs a search looking for a precise string in quotes the
>results now include many books that do not contain the quoted string.
>This behavior has been mentioned in the past on the ADS list, but now
>many more spurious matches are being displayed.
>
>For example, when I search for the string "inflamed with wild notions"
>the following items are listed as matches:
>
>The Republic of Plato: Volume 1
>Socrates: a translation of the Apology, Crito, and parts of the ...
>Clouds Aristophanes, Milton Wylie Humphreys
>
>The string does not appear in these books. But the string is part of a
>popular quote that began to appear in the 1960s (I think). It is often
>misattributed to Plato:
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders,
>they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the
>streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is
>to become of them?
>[End excerpt]
>
>So the Google match algorithm now apparently performs some type of
>indirect matching. The algorithm may look at the set of matches in the
>full Google database and creates some kind of signature. It then
>matches items to the signature. That is a wild guess. Whatever
>technique is being used it is clever. However, it makes my task more
>difficult.
>
>For example, when I search for quotes that are incorrectly credited to
>Mark Twain Google now presents matches for several works of Twain.
>This occurs despite the fact that the target string is absent in
>Twain's oeuvre.
>
>Perhaps other list members have observed this behavior.
>
>Garson
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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