more on Google Books search: the purfuit of gigo

[calimac]

That legendary comedy album, Stan Freberg Presents The United States of America: Volume One The Early Years, has a bit on it where somebody asks Tom Jefferson why he's writing about "the purfuit [pronounced "purfute"] of happiness."

Well, guess what. The Google Books search can't tell the difference between the long s and the letter f either.



This has to be one of the silliest charts I've ever seen. If you're studying the history of typography, it could be great, assuming that the error is consistent. (er, "confiftent") For any other purposes, it could be disastrously misleading. Garbage in, garbage out.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That is actually very beautiful chart, with the way the lines cross so neatly at 1800, and the lift the term gets around 1776.

But yes, it does suggest a deficiency in Google's OCR software.

[mithriltabby]

Ha! Did you send that to the Google team?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Google has googols of smart people. If they can't figure it out, heck with 'em.

[(Anonymous)]

Great catch! And using one of my favorite comedy sketches, too -- though I should note that the Ben Franklin character actually reads the phrase as "purfuit of happineff". (To this concern, Tom Jefferson replies that, "No, it's stylish. It's in, it's very in.") I haven't looked closely at a picture of the Declaration of Indpendence in years, but searching a few online images just now indicates that the typography actually suggests "pursuit of Happinefs" to modern eyes.

"Surly to bed and surly to rise..."

-MTD/neb

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Long s was not used for final letters.