Quisquilia: Lib. nov.

A couple months ago, I wrote somewhat amused about Google’s new reverse image search feature and some of its more entertainingly absurd results.

Well, now as Google have reworked and put into place their new search routines, in addition to a revamp of their homepage, which for the general user appear to work fine (in mysterious ways, though), another example of the inner workings gone awry seems to corrobate the need for wider fine-tuning of the beast and its algorithms.

I found this one while searching for a potential Norwegian dialectal term, which may factor in as Google, in general, seems to consider any language but English somewhat exotic which comes to light when it is acting in its quixotic manner. Just try for yourself:

1. Enter „først og fram“ in the Google search box and press enter.
2. You get: „About 662,000 results (0.11 seconds)“.
3. Take a look at the results and then go to page 2 of the search results.
4. At the top, it now reads: „Page 2 of 12 results (0.25 seconds)“.
5. Say out loud „huh?!“ and take a walk.

NB: The common and correct phrase in Norwegian is „først og fremst“, and although you may find „først og fram“ in the vernacular, it is not recommended for use in written Norwegian. It corresponds to the English „first and foremost“ and is similarly formed and cognate to the German „zuerst und zuvörderst„.