Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by ErikJon on Sept. 16, 2015 ·

Instead of presuming that most users will spell correctly what they are looking for, and that a few will not, Google assumes the opposite: that most users are morons; "If they search for one thing, they probably mean to search for something else, instead."

Consequently, if I search for "pickles," (for lack of a better example), I may be presented with search results that begin by saying, "Did you mean 'pickled'?" or "Are you sure you didn't mean 'pick-axe'?"

In other cases, Google will not even ask me whether I was sure, but will simply show me every thing from "pickled" to "pickling," in the results. Of course, I don't catch on, for thirty seconds or so, as I read down the list of search results, assuming that Google did the search correctly. Then, I finally realize that this is not the form of the word that I had searched for, to begin with.

Along came some brilliant executive at Google, who, after years of giving the users not what they searched for, but rather, something else, finally said to himself, "Eureka! I've got it! Why not allow our users to obtain results according to the very words that they type into the search field? In other words, rather than presume that our users are idiots, and that they don't know how to spell, why not make our search engine do precisely what it was supposed to in the first place? Why, what an ingenious 'tool' this could be for all the world! I might even win a Nobel Prize! We could call it a "verbatim-search tool..."

Of course, the Board of Directors at Google was probably unhappy that their product was now beginning to do what it was supposed to have done in the first place, so someone on the Board decided that, if this nifty "search tool" was to be employed, it should, at least, be hidden; it should not be available on the initial screen; users should have to go looking for it somehow, clicking around, here and there, until they finally found it.

Oh, but then Mr. Kang came along, and ruined Google's plan forever. Thanks to Kang, we can now go directly to the "verbatim search" by default. Someone at Google must be furious, but the rest of us are delighted. God bless Mr. Kang.

And, of course, Google still assumes that anyone using their website in Mexico must be a native Spanish speaker, as anyone in France must, of necessity, be French, and could not possibly be an American businessman, for example, flying into the capital city there for a business meeting, using his laptop on the plane, as well as in his hotel room, or in the meeting room. "Of course not; by Google definition all users in Mexico must be Mexicans; all users in Paris must be French; they must be forced to use the Spanish or French search engines by default, regardless of which language they prefer."

Of course, one could probably "sign in" to Google, in order to save his search preferences regarding region, language, and "verbatim searches," but by doing so he allows Google to track his searches for the rest of his life, "anonymously," perhaps, but, then again, linked always to his e-mail address that he used to sign in automatically--very useful information to the NSA these days, by the way.

In conclusion, thanks again, Mr. Kang, for thinking logically, and for taking the time to correct yet another gleaming oversight on the part of Google. It is amazing to see that no one else, among the add-on developers, thought about making such an add-on; everyone else seems to be content to go through several screens, just to make one search.