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In the early
days of the World Wide Web, when things were just getting
started many geek speak terms were jockeying for position
to be the standards for years to come. I used to drive by
a California-based company every day that had named itself
YKK and think, "What a pity."
Then I think
what if the World Wide Web had lost out to the World Wide
Subway System (WWSS) or some other less noble term? Then
I take it one step further and think, "What if the
term search had lost out to seek"?
Let's think
about this for a moment. Seek is a good word with a nearly
identical meaning to search. In fact, in the Oxford American
Dictionary (with the torn off cover and publishing info)
it states that seek means "To make a search or inquiry
for, to try to find or obtain or do."
In Seek Of
What would be
the repercussions of using seek speak instead of
search? First there would be the seek engines and
the seek engine optimizers who would try to get top
rankings on these engines. Then you would have specialized
seeking going on like local seek, personalized seek and
contextual seek.
There may be
terms bandied about like seek engine specific algorithms,
seek options, seek tips, seek tools
and seek toolbars. If you're looking for someone
online, this would be people seek. If there is something
that you cannot find, you would be seeking high and low.
Out in the real world you may conduct a talent seek
for the next teen idol.
Heck if you
happened to be out and lost in the woods at night, the seek
party would come looking for you using their seek lights.
If by some chance, you had done something morally reprehensible
to a bear or a small woodland creature while you were in
the woods, you may wish to do a little soul seeking. If
you have a pattern of committing these reprehensible acts
and keeping pictures on your home PC, then the police may
obtain a seek warrant to bring you to justice.
Search and Ye Shall Find
What if there
had also been a backlash to all of this seeking? In the
struggle to become the number one term for the same activity,
this could happen. The instant messenger service ICQ could
have chosen to go another direction and today we would have
cumbersome ISEARCH4U. Some of the search engine themselves
may now have different names such as WhatUSearch.com, OneSearch.com
and ExactSearch.com.
Out in the real
world, your kids could be playing Hide & Search. And,
if the police were closing in on you for the aforementioned
reprehensible acts, you may be searching asylum in another
country.
Fun of Finding
The goal of
seeking or searching is to find. If you find what you need,
you've had a successful experience. But, what if from the
early experiences on the Internet, neither search nor seek
were chosen in order to find? We could talk about the Look
or Find Engines now, but that's a whole new subject
altogether, my friend. Let's just leave this one alone.
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