"Googlenopes"

[Athelwulf]

Scientology is the path to enlightenment.



No offense, Dinsdale, but I don't find those particularly creative. I think a really good Googlenope should be something that someone would actually say, and that is theoretically possible, but is considered actually false by many people. Thus, "honest, electable Republican/Democrat" or "Cheney's crisis of conscience". The humor comes from the fact that you'd think someone must have said such a thing at least once on the Internet, and therefore Google would see it and return it as a result.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I think a really good Googlenope should be something that someone would actually say.

I don't know, I think maybe that can be compensated with sufficient creativity. The Googlenopes from the Washington Post in the OP seem to be a form of sarcasm.

"All the girls just love my Camry." Nobody ever said that and that's why it's amusing. Sarcasm can be partisan of course, I'm sure there are six or eight people in America who believe Cheney has a conscience. But there's nobody who thinks a Camry is a babe magnet. It's probably in the owner's manual under Specifications. "Babe Magnetism Coefficient: N/A."

 

[Gustav]

Don't they automatically destroy themselves as soon as they are recognized on a site like this? I already found a hit for "All the girls loved my Camry".

true dat
once the spider hits the quote, it morphs into a googleyups

 

[Athelwulf]

I believe a spider has hit this thread. My Scientology Googlenope now yields this thread as the only search result. That was quick!

 

[cosmictraveler]

This week's Washington Post word contest (the Style Invitational) is about Googlenopes. Apparently this word was already in existence, for those of you who have been following the thread on "How Are New Words Added to English?"

A Googlenope is a phrase which yields no Google hits when entered with quotation marks. Until now of course. They're on the Post's website and ours.

Some of the winners:

• "All the girls loved my Camry"
• "Museum of Suburban Culture"
• "Fox News is more accurate than"
• "The weapons system came in under budget"
• "Three-star Scottish cuisine"
• "Cheney's crisis of conscience"
• "Once again, my husband was right and I was wrong"
• "That controversial Gilligan's Island episode"
• "Utah's biggest party school"
• "President Bush carefully considered"
• "Poems about hirudiniasis"
• "Darfur condo rentals"
• "One sexy imam"
• "Honest electable Democrat"
• "Honest electable Republican"

This really sucks bigtime!