Google Search Now Includes Etymology | Hacker News Reader

Google Search Now Includes Etymology

google.com

100 pointscharlieirish65 comments

It really worries me that whenever Google rolls out a feature within their search results, it destroys a business. For example, earlier currency conversion and dictionary word meanings required using third party sites. Now it can be done directly via their search. I no longer visit the old sites. Now with this, I will be less likely to visit etymonline.com. Quite similar to how including IE by default in Windows lead to lawsuits of unfair competition/monopoly. Is it wrong to believe something similar may happen with Google search.

Google is in the business of organizing the worlds information and monetizing it through advertising.

If you are in the information business, Google is in competition with you.

While I think this is beyond dispute (gathering information for indexing), with some of their more recent moves, we may want to extend that to recognize that Google is also in the content production business.

Google's job is not to keep those other sites in business. They serve their own users (this is arguable, I know, but I think my point here is clear), by making it easier to access information. This makes my life as a Google user easier, so it's something they should pursue.

Looking forwards to the day Google includes electronic component datasheets in its search results and puts all those stupid unusable SEO-gaming datasheet repository websites out of business.

Amen.

If you need an example, Google "TFK426". No, it's not a tuning fork, it's an 8-pin DIL.

Same goes for the brokers: "SAA1084P".

Those are just 2 examples I found last Friday. They're components on an old PLC I need to fix and they're just laughing in my face. I suspect they're opamps but I'll probably never know and I'll end up telling someone to just buy a new system.

Google is slowly going towards "I'm feeling lucky"-and-you-don't-even-need-a-search-term-but-the-ads-are-still-targeted (http://imgur.com/hiOnsKI). But I wonder why there is no ads on Google's homepage (they often already know what you were looking at).

Some initial remarks after playing around with this for a bit: Currently, this seems to only include the etymology for English words. Proper nouns are not included, except those also used as common nouns, like Newton. Nor are most compound words made up of simpler words or affixes such as mainland, snowman, simply, or even disuse. This is understandable because covering all these cases will dramatically expand the number of words that have to be dealt with, and this is probably the limitation of the original source used by Google for the etymology information, which was probably an etymological dictionary with the usual space constraints. But freed from such constraints, it should be feasible in the future to add in the etymological information for such compounds.

What I like is the tree structure of the presentation. This covers not only compound words but weirder cases of combination of disparate etymological sources—check out discombobulate or typhoon. But the tree structure is misleading in cases like apple, where Dutch appel and German Apfel are indicated as if they were parent forms instead of sister forms to the English apple. The branching should occur between Germanic and the daughter languages to make the relationship clearer. Also, note that this doesn't show the Germanic form for apple—it looks like it doesn't do hypothetical forms, restricting itself to attested forms.

A welcome feature would be being able to click through to different words at each stage of the etymology, to be able to trace through to even earlier stages or to see what other words are descended from the same roots.

> Proper nouns are not included, except those also used as common nouns, like Newton

It has Pyrex, but just says it's an invented word.

Pyrex is invented, but comes from Pyro (Fire) + Rex (King), which makes the use of it for heat proof glass easier to understand.

The new Google feature is really neat. I'm uneasy about these things being built into Google rather than Google pointing people to other websites.

Google building more and more stuff directly into search has been going on since the early 2000s. Why are you uneasy now?

I've always been uneasy about it.

Google providing me with definitions was troubling, but online dictionaries are sub-optimal. Google giving me instant conversions was so handy that I didn't care.

But etymologies are handled nicely by http://www.etymonline.com/ and it's sad to think they're going to get a lot less traffic now.

I think it would be neat if Google provided some crowd-sourcing to supplement the data it already has.

Maybe modify the graph widget that allows you to suggest a root for any word in the graph.

Another example where the tree diagram is incorrect:

https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+oligarchy

The current tree diagram makes it look like the Greek oligarkhia came from Medieval Latin, not the other way round. The etymological information given below is "late 15th cent.: from Greek oligarkhia (probably via medieval Latin)", so it looks like a bug in generating tree diagrams from the information.

It would be helpful to have the Greek, Persian, Hebrew etc. forms in the original language orthography as well instead of just the romanized transcriptions.

All in all, people really seeking etymology data won't use this, I don't think a single website is a reference, so one needs to combine many sources.

Personally I blend etymonline.com, http://www.lexilogos.com/etymologie.htm, http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/, www.wiktionary.org, and others to get a broader view.

This news will be little free publicity for them too, although I'd wish google to include a little set of premade links into his in-search proxy box. That would be a nice little touch, or maybe a commercial pain.

That would be nice, though I wonder if it would last if the even did it.

It used to be, if you searched for a map, Google would show a link to its own map (with thumbnail) + links to other mapping services (mapquest, maporama, etc). It used to be ...

The compiler cannot compile itself yet.

https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+etymology

Try again. That was fast.

I mean it does not display that nice graph.

Yes, I was under the impression the graph was the feature. The textual description of the etymology, I thought, was already often an included part of the snippet.

Google gives me "late Middle English: from Old French ethimologie, via Latin from Greek etumologia, from etumologos ‘student of etymology,’ from etumon, neuter singular of etumos ‘true.’". It doesn't give the fancy tree diagram though.

It works for me using Opera Next. Chrome, FireFox and IE: No go :)

It won't do the word "computer" either, though it does do "compute".

It seems more and more clear with every new announcement, that Google has adopted the "embrace, extend and extinguish" strategy and it's taking it farther than what we thought possible in the past.

These are worrisome news for every believer in choice and freedom. Google, a former supporter of free software, is now determined to exert its power to get rid of competitors and then lock us in. Our only option is to not give in to momentary convenience, but to cultivate the habit of comparing alternatives and choosing by ourselves instead.

You mean www.duckduckgo.com ?

I actually have DuckDuckGo as my default search engine, but as Google extends its reach, we have to find alternatives for other services too. Google's decision to display its own products prominently and bury the rest is downright evil in my book.

There are many googlers who sincerely support free software, but Google the company is a business that has no particular interest in preserving other businesses or even business models.

Why would anyone expect Google not to eliminate its competitors?

You're attacking a straw man.

I don't object to Google fighting its competitors, but it must play by the rules. Google is not a country, but part of society and this imposes certain obligations.

And what rule is Google violating?

A very quick search turns up this: "Google faces antitrust probes in India, Europe, 3 other jurisdictions" "Google Inc faces anti-trust probes in India, Europe" [...]

And how many of those have been initiated because Google was adding these gadgets to Search?

So, what standard is Google extending with proprietary capabilities?

I never mentioned the word "propietary" in my comment. I said that Google's decision to display its own products prominently and bury the rest is downright evil.

Now that you say standards.. that reminds me of Google's (non-existent) MathML support.

I think icebraining was referring to your use of "embrace, extend, extinguish", which specifically refers to standards-based technologies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

Not that it makes the sentiment of your comment any less valid. It just isn't exactly the same as the original Microsoft meaning of the phrase.

You're totally right. But I would argue that its search engine is considered a standard by many. And now with a 90% market share it's reversing its policies.

Also, lest never forget Google Reader: "Embrace, extend, extinguish: How Google crushed and abandoned the RSS industry" http://www.zdnet.com/embrace-extend-extinguish-how-google-cr...

I would argue that its search engine is considered a standard by many.

Only by people who don't understand the meaning of "standard" in this context. Otherwise, it makes no sense to say "Google is embracing and extending Google Search".

Also, lest never forget Google Reader: "Embrace, extend, extinguish: How Google crushed and abandoned the RSS industry"

Another person who doesn't understand what EEE means, despite spelling it out. Yes, Google crowded out the RSS ecosystem, and eventually killed. Yes, I do agree that Google was a destructive influence for RSS. No, it wasn't an example of a company following the EEE strategy.

The whole point of the EEE strategy is that you extinguish the competition, not your own products. It's a plan to dominate a market by making your proprietary format the new de-facto standard (extending the original), which kills every other option.

If Google had followed the EEE strategy, it wouldn't have killed Reader. Instead, you'd still be using it, except now it would only support GoogleRSS feeds (made popular by leveraging feedburner), which would be a binary, undocumented format that nobody else would be able to parse.

Well if one of your products is in competition with the 'star' one (Plus), then the last E in EEE is perfectly logical. Notice that Page's push for plus happened after the development and offering of Reader. So, they EE'd RSS and then they had to E it.

EEE is a strategy. Unless there's any evidence that Reader was created eight years ago just so that it could swallow the RSS market and be killed to stop competing with a product that was years away from existing, it's not EEE. It's just a normal business decision to not compete with itself.

90% market share implies a position similar to IE6 some years ago, a de facto standard.

With respect to RSS, Google launched a free product, poured millions into it. If you're not Google you can't compete with that. It was devastating. It destroyed everything. And with only their product standing, Google said, "you know what? I'll kill RSS dead, you have some months to transfer to my closed proprietary format/social network, Google+, the new standard". So it's in fact the EEE strategy.

Are you claiming that they poured millions into Reader for eight years as part of a plan to gain a few users to a service that didn't even exist at the time?

I disagree; I didn't mention proprietary capabilities out of pedantry, but because I think the two situations are fundamentally different. All Google is doing here is adding more features to its products, and while it sucks for people who made a business providing those features, it's completely different from the parasitic behavior that EEE represents.

An easy way to tell the difference is comparing with other companies doing the same: for example, DuckDuckGo is lauded for adding these kinds of small features. The only difference is that they're too small to kill anybody's business. But if DuckDuckGo tried to extend a standard format with proprietary capabilities in order to kill it, would we laud them?

Your analogy with DDG doesn't hold.

First, DDG includes (mostly) other companies' services like HN, WolframAlpha, etc. It doesn't compete with them, it's closer to prerendering in Chrome.

Second, I argued in other comment that Google Search is, for many users, a standard, and DDG must follow it or be left behind.

First, DDG includes (mostly) other companies' services like HN, WolframAlpha, etc. It doesn't compete with them, it's closer to prerendering in Chrome.

Plenty of them are builtin and/or part of DuckDuckGo hack. And even for others, it's pretty different from just prerendering. They are choosing a single site to display data from. Is it really different if Google makes a partnership without some site(s) and kills off everyone else? Why?

Second, I argued in other comment that Google Search is, for many users, a standard, and DDG must follow it or be left behind.

Except in this case, Google is the one behind, since DDG has many more special queries than them.

I use DDG, StarPage, and others because I consider privacy a right. Yet I don't necessarily endorse any of them, you're misrepresenting my opinion to come out on top.

Your argument is strikingly close to those against net neutrality. I'll just left the conversation here, you'll defend Google no matter what.

Yet I don't necessarily endorse any of them, you're misrepresenting my opinion to come out on top.

I never said you did. I never talked about your personal opinions on DDG or Startpage. Hell, the comment where I introduced DDG wasn't even a reply to you.

I used the fact that DDG is praised - in general, not specifically by you - for doing exactly what Google is being criticized for, and that shows that it's not inherently a bad thing, like EEE always is.

Your argument is strikingly close to those against net neutrality.

My argument is "if X is so wrong, how come we praise everyone else for doing X?"

I'm sure plenty of groups have used the same argument. It doesn't make me into them anymore than singing Maybe I'm Amazed makes me Paul McCartney.

I'll just left the conversation here, you'll defend Google no matter what.

No, just if I think it's being unfairly criticized. You won't hear me defend their appalling privacy stance, their terrible customer service, their braindead real name requirement on Plus, etc. There's a reason why I left Gmail and Reader years ago, and that's because I think Google has way to much power for our own good.

But it's not because they add freaking etymology utilities to their search engine.

Why should open, factual data, require Google to send users to third party websites, thereby increasing the latency and number of clicks for all users? The data for these almost surely comes from openly available word databases.

If I ask my computer or phone for the definition or history of the word 'Foo', I don't want to be sent off to historyoffoo.com as the top link, I just want it to give me the answer, followed perhaps by links to other stuff.

Do you think if you ask what time is it, Google should respond first and foremost that you need to click and go to dateandtime.com to see the answer?

Google's mission is the organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, not to organize only the world's websites into 10 blue links.

The ultimate goal of Google is to built the Starship Enterprise's Computer. Could you imagine Captain Picard's frustration if he said "How long to Starbase Alpha at Warp 9" and the Computer replied "I can't give you the direct answer, but please visit StarbaseMaps.com and it will be able to answer your question."

This becomes all the more clearer if you imagine voice or mobile user, where multi-step latency is huge and queries should be answered in the fewest steps possible. Why it is evil for Google to do this, but not Apple+Siri I can't fathom.

Does Apple profit from ads embedded in Siri?

Siri advertises 'Bing' on some results, I'm sure they get paid for that.

There's also the good ol' Etymonline (http://www.etymonline.com/) which I prefer over the Google search.

There were other good ol' sites, calculators, FX rates, maps, dictionaries, timers. If the easiest one is 'good enough', it's going to destroy the rest.

And just as they merge, so must the ways in which we connect to that information. Type > touch/voice > intuitive/AI/chipped. 'Resistance is futile' ;)

Chipped! Funniest thing I've read all morning, thanks.

Edit: Incidentally, I've been thinking a lot recently about how anxious I am for a really good wearable machine for time tracking and management. I've checked out FitBit et al., but I haven't found the one yet. It's not quite a chipping, but only insofar as the device is to be on the outside of my skin.

Which of course has a !bang on DuckDuckGo: !etym or !etymology

For a good comparison of how much more information Etymonline has, look up the word "silly". Etymonline gives a much better sense of the almost unbelievable shift in meaning over time.

and, of course, "nice".

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...

Chrom(ium|e) supports on the fly request to etymonline.com, e t y TAB and you're there. Very handy.

As a native Hebrew speaker, I would love to see the reverse lookup. Enter a biblical Hebrew word and see how it propagated to other languages. Two words that I could come up with were leviathan and behemoth, but that was easy since these sound almost the same in Hebrew.

Now I'll wait for a blog post from etymonline.com and wiktionary about how their traffic went to zero.

You've always been able to search for bugs on Google, silly.

My wife has been using this for about a month to help teach Greek and Latin roots to her 7th grade language arts students. It's a great tool for them to use since they already know how to google.

Has done for a while, but wasn't aware of using the "etymology" query; I used to hit the drop-down on "define:" queries.

Neat. Wonder how they're generating those images. Using go + doing it as they're queried maybe (similar to http://blog.golang.org/from-zero-to-go-launching-on-google )?

I googled war.

https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+onomatopoeia#q=ety...

War never changes.

I'm a little sad it doesn't include the Proto-language root.

It seems they have pre-processed images of etymologies of most of the words and just indexing it.

Looks like a normal search to me...

startpage.com does not have this "feature".

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