Oh what a dream if that were true! Instead, every year, the 'synonyms' get broader and broader. To me it looks like they're using synonyms of synonyms (of synonyms).
One thing is surely true: Google abhors a vacuum, they will show you results, no matter how tenuously connected to your query.
Forget about synonyms of synonyms - I've seen antonyms bolded as matches in google search results. I have to imagine I'm not the only one.
There seems to be a part of algorithm smart enough to figure out that both Linux and Windows are operating systems, but not smart enough to realize that the difference usually matters a lot for the person asking the question.
That said, skipping synonyms and other query variant generation is definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When it works well it massively increases the recall of the search engine at very little loss of precision, which is important given the scale and noisiness of web results.
I disagree, I want control back. They've neutered almost every query narrowing option they used to have. They don't care anymore they just want to give you results.
I'm not saying the, lets call it 'query automation', is always bad, I just want the option to turn it off to some degree. Apparently we can no longer be trusted with that.
This is a Google problem, not a search problem.
So I tried to google various variations of "separator line latex math" but it always synonymed them to include "line break latex", which is obviously "\\" and not what I want.
It was written, and was meant to be read in, an exasperated and slightly dramatic tone. I thought that was obvious from the opening sentence, but apparently not.