New York Times: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Ben Zimmer, executive producer of a Web site and software package called the Visual Thesaurus, was seeking the earliest use of the phrase “you’re not the boss of me.” (ed-my husband and I were just discussing use of that particular phrase with our son yesterday). Using a newspaper database, he had found a reference from 1953.
But while using Google’s book search recently, he found the phrase in a short story contained in “The Church,” a periodical published in 1883 and scanned from the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
Google’s book search “allows you to look for things that would be very difficult to search for otherwise,” said Zimmer. But …do we really care when the phrase was first used? Don’t most little children think of the phrase on their own anyway?
So then; should Google be be the only worthwhile place to search for content in old books? If not Google, then who? Post your opinion if you’d like.
My thanks to Walt for editorial assistance.
thanks
you’re phrasing is indeed better- can I change it on the story?
Linguists certainly care
Linguists certainly care when the phrase first appeared. But as an euphemism for everybody, I don’t know that “we” care. Than again, “we” don’t care about much.
I’ve used Google Book Search to find all sorts of fascinating old information on science history, folklore, fairy tales, etc. Google Books encourages people to be curious about books, which I’m all for.
By no means should they be the only place IF anyone else cares to make the investment, but I would hesitate to discourage Google.
You care when wanting to
You care when wanting to know the answer will help you win a bet, a competition/quiz or argument. Or it’s one of those things that sticks in your mind and you need to know!
“be allowed”?
That’s an odd question. Are you suggesting, what, legislation forbidding Google from partnering with more libraries to scan books?
In fact, Google will probably never be “the repository of all the books” because the fringe area of rarely-held books spreads out so far. But, particularly with the (probably unfortunate) settlement of the lawsuits, I can’t see how “be allowed” even comes into play. Better question: Should Google be the only worthwhile place to search for content in old books? The answer to that is almost certainly No, and Open Content Alliance already has quite a substantial alternative (that’s nicer to view).
Updated: Thanks for making the change. And I’ll stick with my answer: No, and OCA is already a substantial alternative (with Open Library as an alternate route). I think it’s a shame Microsoft dropped Live Book Search, which had an excellent interface, but they still get credit for digitizing three-quarters of a million books to higher standards than Google Library Project–and not trying to restrict the results.