Yikes, that sounds like a software architecture problem. The "infer which words are more likely to get good results" layer and the "search for things using words" layer are blind to each other's behaviors.

How do Google's engineering teams get away with this obvious error? For how much they're paid, you'd expect them to be better about things that passive observers readily notice. Don't they use their own product, anyway?

Do you remember the full query?