[Ads-l] Quote Origin: I Had Exactly Four Seconds To Hot Up the Disintegrator, and Google Had Told Me It Wasn't Enough

[Rich Lowenthal]

Chandler possibly (probably?) borrowed the term from cricket, in which 
"google" refers to a ball that breaks and swerves. Chandler's mother 
moved them to England when he was twelve, and he attended Dulwich 
College (a public school); he played cricket while he lived there.


------ Original Message ------
>From "ADSGarson O'Toole" <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 9/16/2024 22:02:52
Subject Quote Origin: I Had Exactly Four Seconds To Hot Up the 
Disintegrator, and Google Had Told Me It Wasn't Enough

>The popular writer of detective fiction Raymond Chandler crafted the
>statement in the subject line in 1953.
>Was Chandler a secret time traveler? Probably not.
>
>Chandler wrote a letter to his friend which contained a jargon-filled
>passage mocking science fiction:
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>Did you ever read what they call Science Fiction. It's a scream. It is
>written like this: "I checked out with K 19 on Aldabaran III, and
>stepped out through the crummalite hatch on my 22 Model Sirus Hardtop.
>. . .
>The sudden brightness swung me around and the Fourth Moon had already
>risen. I had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator and
>Google had told me it wasn’t enough. He was right."
>They pay brisk money for this crap?
>[End excerpt]
>
>Were the founders of the company that became Google, Sergey Brin and
>Larry Page, inspired by Chandler's words? Probably not.
>
>The name of the search engine Google was inspired by the enormous
>number googol which is 10^100. Larry Page misspelled the word when he
>selected the name and registered the internet address according to the
>book "In the Plex" by journalist Steven Levy.
>
>Here is a link to the QI article.
>https://quoteinvestigator.com/2024/09/16/hot-sf/
>
>Feedback welcome
>Garson
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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