I'm guessing they was trying to make sense of my search query? That document seems to explain the search operators, so here's my logic behind the choice of operators:

Why `NEAR2`? Maybe Steve is their middle name, so `NEAR` won't work as it only looks at bordering names. I don't necessarily know if the databases are going to present the names as `Lindsay, Steve` or `Steve Lindsay`, so `ADJ` (where order matters) isn't a good choice.

Why `ste$5`? Maybe they didn't use `Steve` as their name on the application. Could be `Steven` or `Stephen`. That suggests `ste$4`. However, I've found that adding an extra letter can be more robust. Maybe the database has a typo like `Stephenn`, hence the extra letter.