GoogleWhacking

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You type two words - any two words - into Google, and press search. If you get one, and only one, hit, you score points equal to the product of the number of hits each word individually obtains when googled.

Apparently is, or was, popular in some parts of CompsciLand?.

Hint: If you get a good google whack, record it on the 'net somewhere. Then no-one else can get it as long as Google knows your page.

Just had a go at this, my search terms were "B r i a r e o s b a s t i n g" which got me a single hit, however the words individually got me about 90,000 hits. Not too shabby, if I say so myself. - Tsunami

Which English dictionary have you found which contains Briareos?

That's not a requirement under the rules as stated... - tjm

It is a word, check out the google hits, over 6000 :) - Tsunami

: There are over 159,000 hits for pheonix (sic).

MawKernewek: found "A happy birthday to you!" "May you know jesus near" while not even trying to get a Googlewhack.

: Phrases don't count - sorry ^^;; - SunKitten

PeterTaylor found "necropsist" "dairy".
TheInquisitor: 102,560 "paraplegic siderial"
Requiem: transubstantiated fnord, fishlike recidivist. And Fraunhofer orangeries, although Fraunhofer doesn't actually feature in dictionary.com so it's a bit of a cheat. And "quasi-meritocratic gatekeeping", though I don't know if hyphenation is required.
Edith: "Shadowmarch Steppes" And I wasn't even trying.

The rules include that the words be findable in a dictionary. I think siderial is misspelt, and fnord and Shadowmarch aren't in the dictionary to the best of my knowledge. We got googlewhacked for something weird from the story by Oneiros (pulchritudinous happenstance, I think) - SunKitten

The words have to be found in the Google dictionary. I checked - "fnord" is in there. :giggle: --Requiem

: "" isn't a word... -- Senji

ChrisHowlett: "B a n d i c o o t" "u s t u l a t e" for 14,640,000,000!
Ultros: "Patriarchal" "Morticide" for 2,990,000 x 2,310 = 6,906,900,000

Dictionary reference for "morticide"?

At a guess, that would be zombie killing! --Tsunami

TerryPratchett used it in Reaper Man. That's good enough for me. I see no reason why should have to be a dictionary word if it can get a score like that. --Ultros

Because the rules say so. 'Morticide' is not in google dictionary - sorry. Come on people, this is getting silly - use real words. That does not include 'shadowmarch', 'briareos', 'siderial' ('sidereal' is correct), 'ning-nong' or 'morticide' ;) - SunKitten

I wasn't trying to be fair, I was just trying to find a piece of music which contained the word. Sorry if this has upset you --Edith

: Not upset so much as vaguely frustrated/amused - if you want to play games by adding bits to or totally ignoring the rules, MorningtonCrescent is that way :) - SunKitten (didn't realise 'wasn't even trying' meant 'doing something completely different' - normally it means 'was my first somewhat vague attempt' - sorry)

DouglasReay found: "I l l u m i n a t o r y" and "n i n g - n o n g" by the process of finding a likely page, then picking two of the more unusual words within it, scoring a paltry 581 and 625.

Here's a questionable one that someone should make a call on for me - wondering whether my 498,834,000,000 point GoogleWhack? counts. The words were "therianthropy" (for 64,200) and "matriculation" (for 7,770,000). Yes, I was actually looking for something using those words. I couldn't find a 'google dictionary' as listed anywhere to determine whether "therianthropy" counts as a real word, though it's got a Wikipedia page and 64k hits so I'm leaning toward 'yes' - can anyone clarify what the 'google dictionary' is, or tell me if that big T word is in it?