Google Books no longer sorting by "Custom range" of date?

[Joel S. Berson]

Thanks, Garson.  I had forgotten about that URL.  I will make it my 
"shortcut" to Google Books.

It does allow me to select a custom date range.  But "enormously 
powerful and valuable" is the mote in the eye of the beholder.  I was 
looking for instances of "malaria" before the OED2's current earliest 
quotation of 1740, thinking there might be some because "Jesuits' 
bark" dates from earlier (1683).

[spoiler alert -- we've all heard the following before.]
The second hit of an undeclared number but probably nearly a googol 
is from the United Nations Economic and Social Council, dated 
1708.  The tenth hit is "Charles Knight's Popular History of 
England", dated 1547.  A little early for malaria, but worth a 
peek.  "Malaria" actually is on the page.  But this Googled book is 
in truth Knight's "A History of England", 1867; the 1547 date comes 
from the title page's declaration that vol. 2 covers "A.D. 
1377--1547" (the imprint seems to have no publication date).  And the 
OCR errors!  And "Search English pages" apparently conflates English 
with at least Latin.  I'll browse a little, but not far.

And thanks also to Ben B.  I will keep his suggestions in mind, but 
at the moment Garson's is simpler and works.

Joel

At 7/30/2014 06:41 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:

>Joel, if you start your search at the following webpage you will be
>able to specify a time range. Note that Google Books search engine
>implementation has been defective for quite some time. So you will
>experience false negative and false positive matches. But the GB
>search engine is still enormously powerful and valuable.
>
>http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search
>
>On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 5:25 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header 
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: Google Books no longer sorting by "Custom range" of date?
> > 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I can get Sorted by date (as well as the choices for "Any books" and
> > for "Any document").  But for "Any time" *I* can't get "Custom range".
> >
> > Does anyone else have my problem, or can anyone suggest a cause 
> or a solution?
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > At 7/30/2014 05:20 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
> >>When I click on "search tools," there is an "any time" click-down
> >>that allows custom ranges and a "sorted by relevance" click-down
> >>that allows sorting by date (though it's not very good). HTH. BB
> >>
> >>On Jul 30, 2014, at 2:05 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
> >>
> >> > In GB, selecting Search Tools / Any time allows me to choose any of
> >> > the last three centuries, but not "Custom range".  Is that no longer
> >> > provided?  Or some parochial problem?
> >> >
> >> > Joel
> >>
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>
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