On-Screen Scientist

Now and then I like to share with my vast readership some of the amusing Google search strings that have led people to this blog, as well as some of the mysterious or gratifying ones. Previous posts in this line are “What Brings You Here?,” “More Searchers Arriving at a Place They Never Imagined,” and “Some Google Search Examples to Start Off July.”

The search string that told me that it was definitely time to compile this post was one that brought someone to this site today, which coincidentally is the day after St. Patrick’s Day. This classic search string was “real pitcher of a leprechaun.” Now the use of “pitcher” in place of “picture” brings so many people here (where posts about Little League and the OnScreen Pitch Count iPhone app are plentiful) that I’m starting to think of “pitcher” as a candidate for alternative spelling. It is actually the way many people around where I live pronounce “picture,” which has confused me more than once when the topic was Little League team photos. But what about the leprechaun? Well, that word was used to describe a person in “A Rocky Little League Start,” which naturally enough also included the word “pitcher.” I have to assume that the person that handed that search string to Google believes in leprechauns, or at least thinks there just might be an actual photo of one on the internet somewhere. So far I’ve resisted the temptation to see what might turn up with the proper spelling of “picture.”

My post “Last Days of Chestnut, Guinea Pig” seems to bring at least one reader to this blog every day. Most of these, as I’ve noted before, are evidently people searching for veterinary or pet euthanasia advice. The desperation of these googlers comes through in the way they phrase their searches, not just in key words, but as questions or plaintive statements about their pet’s symptoms. These are often sad, as in “my guinea pig is whimpering like a baby.” An exception was one I found funny, as it was obviously the coincidence of our guinea pig’s name that brought the searcher here: “are guinea pigs allowed chestnuts.” Note that this search string is expressed as a question, which follows the letter to an advice column format so often adopted by google users, at least those with pet concerns.

I’m almost sure I’ve run across “my cat cries when we fight” twice as a search string that pointed to this blog, presumably to “Cries in the Night.” I think it’s fascinating that someone would just hand that fact (based on experience, I assume) over to google for an internet search. Perhaps they were trying to locate a first-person account they had read in the past but couldn’t remember where. I imagine they were searching for others with similarly sensitive cats though. If so, this blog would have disappointed them. Yet they came here, so perhaps something else piqued their curiosity.

I don’t have a clue how a search with “bugs bunny pulverizing pitch” led someone here, unless “pitch” alone sufficed. But that must have been on page 100 or later of the finds, after many “bugs bunny” matches. Maybe I have a reference to programming bugs somewhere.

As a more detailed example of how mere word occurrence can lead to google matches I’ll cite the google search for “bible significance of crow.” which turned up

On-Screen Scientist » Jim Crow
Jan 19, 2009 … Posts Tagged ‘Jim Crow’ … but it is also completely beside the point as regards the significance of Obama’s election. …. Yet Barack Obama is about to be sworn in as President with his hand on the Lincoln Bible. …

Yep, “Thoughts of Water on the Eve of Obama’s Inauguration” does contain the words “crow,” “significance,” and “Bible.” Nothing about Biblical significance of the crow though.

That same Obama inauguration post was evidently matched to a search on “effects of thoughts on water,” the meaning of which is puzzling, but could be about some imagined telekinetic effect I guess.

I have written (“Ronnie Knox, Marcel Proust, and I” and “Ronnie Knox, Rest in Peace“) about a certain Harvey Knox, stepfather of Ronnie Knox, the gifted quarterback who led a strange and fascinating life, but I have no knowledge whatsoever of “The Harvey Knox Pig Figurine Collection.” Sorry.

In the gratifying search category I’ll put “onscreen scienstist japense surrender,” since it leads me to believe that my post “August 6, 1945: Just Another Day in the War?” stuck in someone’s mind along with this blog’s title, even though the searcher is an even worse typist than I am.

Tags: blogs, Google, internet search

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 10:46 am and is filed under Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.