Point of information:
You know how Google started doing that thing with the drop-down suggestions in the search box on the main page? Or maybe you don't know. It seems you may have to have a certain browser and/or be in the U.S.? At any rate, you start typing in your search terms and a drop-down menu appears with a list of suggested queries based on what you've typed in so far, refining the suggestions for each letter you type in. This feature is called Google Suggest. (Here's a brief description, which also includes instructions for disabling it if you absolutely hate it.)
Well. I generally don't pay that much attention to it, not finding it extraordinarily useful (unless I'm feeling lazy), but I am aware of it. So when I was doing research for my children's literature term paper (on homosexuality in picture books), I noticed that Google Suggest does not offer any suggestions for "homosexuality". It's got suggestions right up until I type in that "x", at which point I'm on my own for coming up with a search query. I suspiciously tried a query for "lesbianism" to see if that produced anything. Once again, I got suggestions right up until I typed in the "n".
So, naturally, I was going to get all tetchy about it. But then I noticed (while searching for "heterosexism") that there are no suggestions for "heterosexuality" either (so, no, there were no suggestions for "heterosexism"). And yet it's nothing at all to do with qualms about "sex" since there are numerous suggestions for search strings beginning with "sex", including "sexuality".
Now I'm rather curious about the algorithm behind Google Suggest.
Well. I generally don't pay that much attention to it, not finding it extraordinarily useful (unless I'm feeling lazy), but I am aware of it. So when I was doing research for my children's literature term paper (on homosexuality in picture books), I noticed that Google Suggest does not offer any suggestions for "homosexuality". It's got suggestions right up until I type in that "x", at which point I'm on my own for coming up with a search query. I suspiciously tried a query for "lesbianism" to see if that produced anything. Once again, I got suggestions right up until I typed in the "n".
So, naturally, I was going to get all tetchy about it. But then I noticed (while searching for "heterosexism") that there are no suggestions for "heterosexuality" either (so, no, there were no suggestions for "heterosexism"). And yet it's nothing at all to do with qualms about "sex" since there are numerous suggestions for search strings beginning with "sex", including "sexuality".
Now I'm rather curious about the algorithm behind Google Suggest.