[Ads-l] Miscellaneous comments about search and citations (was antedating impactful)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Fred Shapiro
> Speaking of IA, I find recently that when I do searches in it, it is
> not pulling up older material.  Has anyone noticed a change along
> those lines?

I have experienced that problem for years with Google Books (GB). To
force GB to show earlier material I modify the search to place an
upper bound on the year. This strategy sometimes yields additional
matches. However, if the upper bound is too chronologically close to
the desired item's date, Google Books sometimes fails to display it.

This would not happen if GB used a standard database implementation. I
do not know how their implementation works. Since GB doesn't show
advertisements, Google lacks a financial incentive to maintain it.
Now, Google has changed the interface and linking scheme, and the old
interface is being deprecated.

Internet Archive (AI) also allows upper and lower bounds on dates.
That might yield additional matches. IA contains a huge amount of
misdated material especially periodicals. GB also contains quite a bit
of misdated material.

Regarding citation format, I use two formats, both of which might be
viewed as verbose. One goal is to make the information self contained.
Someone might find one of my posts via a Google search. The citations
should be easy to interpret with tags like "Newspaper location".
Admittedly, this verbosity may make the citations difficult to scan
rapidly.

I use tags like [Begin excerpt] [End excerpt] because I sometimes
place commentary adjacent to excerpts. I have found that readers mix
text together when I do not use demarcations carefully.

Garson

On Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 9:54 AM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Speaking of IA, I find recently that when I do searches in it, it is not pulling up older material.  Has anyone noticed a change along those lines?
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2026 9:16 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: antedating impactful"
>
> You're thinking of "GB."  ProQuest? "PQ."  Chronicling America? "CA."
>
> And Internet Archive is "IA," the exact opposite of "AI."
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 8:14 AM Shapiro, Fred
> <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > "G." could be confused with "Google Books."
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Jonathan Lighter <00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2026 8:09 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Subject: antedating impactful"
> >
> > MW: 1939.
> >
> > (From now on I'll reference "Newspapers.com" as "N " and
> > "GenealogyBank" as "G." )
> >
> > 1929 _Toronto Daily Star_ (Oct. 28) 2 [N]:  This penman-padre has it
> > within his power to give to the world the story of one of the most
> > impactful conversations two strong men ever had together.
> >
> > 1937 Ibid. (Feb. 23) 3 [N]: He replied by flinging in my face the
> > impactful names of Pidgeon and Dickson and Parkes.
> >
> > This was one of the words we were warned in junior high (ca1960) never
> > to use, because like to "contact" and to "impact," it was wielded only
> > by semi-literate blockheads.
> >
> > JL
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> >

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