My files disappear into my computer with great regularity – even the ones I name myself using such explicit language that I’m certain they’ll pop up when I need them.\u00a0 Wrong.\u00a0 Whatever language I used is not the language that comes to mind when I search for them.<\/p>\n
I have had this trouble going as far back as the Yellow Pages.\u00a0 I have never been able to quickly decide what the Official Namer Of The Yellow Pages will call, for instance, car repair.\u00a0 Oh – I say car – they say auto.\u00a0 And so on and so on.\u00a0 My only successful\u00a0Yellow Pages search was pizza, after they created pages in the “P” section for it. Everything else in that book remains a mystery to this day.<\/p>\n
Those were the early days – the days of innocent assumption, believing that my own logic was clear and superior and that\u00a0I categorize the same way everyone else does.\u00a0 Today I am stripped of that illusion.\u00a0 Nothing points out differences in thinking more quickly than a\u00a0searchable \u00a0database.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recently I was one of several people looking to\u00a0find a specific\u00a0CD holder for children’s music.\u00a0 This favorite CD holder was shaped like a ladybug.\u00a0 It went missing.\u00a0 The young owner of the ladybug was inconsolable – more over the container than its\u00a0contents.\u00a0 We tried every store we could think of.\u00a0 No children’s CD holders in friendly shapes.\u00a0 We went online.\u00a0 Meanwhile the child decided she might be even happier\u00a0with a butterfly-shaped CD holder-replacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I typed in every conceivable description of such an item that I could think of.\u00a0 I changed the order of the words.\u00a0I found out during this search that they are often called\u00a0“CD wallets.”\u00a0 I added that phrase to my searches and kept looking for one shaped like a butterfly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An ebay-friendly\u00a0acquaintance was puzzled I was having such a problem.\u00a0 He\u00a0said everything relies on the way you seek.\u00a0\u00a0Duh.\u00a0 I already know that.\u00a0 But evidently I don’t speak Search language.\u00a0 He said it just comes naturally to him and he let loose a stream of descriptive words in a sequence I would never have thought\u00a0would work.\u00a0\u00a0Meantime my daughter had also asked a Search Engine Specialist\u00a0who gave her the words that led to the one and only butterfly CD holder that any of us found. She bought it immediately and happiness\u00a0is restored.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0experience points out again that my thought process in no way matches the way searches are conducted.\u00a0It doesn’t even match my own thinking from the previous day. This is not a good outcome for a writer who opens\u00a0the same files again and again.\u00a0 I name them\u00a0when I first create them.\u00a0 Evidently a gremlin enters my brain’s Center Of Logical Response while I sleep and by the next day I am hunting endlessly.\u00a0 When I accidently locate a correct folder, it’s now called something I find hard to believe.\u00a0 Who named this file?\u00a0\u00a0I am forced to reprise the old-school write-it-down method.\u00a0 I open the file, make changes, then write the name of the file on a piece of paper and attach it to the hard copy of the manuscript in progress.<\/p>\n
If I can’t even find my own\u00a0files, with my own quite specific descriptions, is it a wonder I can’t figure out what to call something I’m trying to buy?\u00a0 Google tries to help by suggesting that perhaps I might try\u00a0another word. My friend Catherine tries to help.\u00a0 She says\u00a0 ask the\u00a0saint of lost objects.\u00a0 She’s not Catholic but she speaks to Saint Anthony\u00a0frequently and\u00a0she says\u00a0he\u00a0helps every time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I need a Saint of Search Engines – one who’ll whisper in my ear “Look here.” and point me to which words to type, which items on the pull-down menu to select.\u00a0 And while he’s\/she’s at it, explain who decided\u00a0 which letters will comprise an entire text message?\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don’t even try to think like a search engine anymore.\u00a0 These days I ask everybody, “What would you call that,\u00a0online, I mean?”\u00a0\u00a0The correct answer is generally the opposite of what I thought.<\/p>\n