cruel to be kind

In GBW, there was the topic about a women tried to translate a quote from Virginia Woolf back to English:

it says “when live gives you a citron….make lemonade” – obviously bad “German-English” translation but anyway –

to which I answered:

Speaking of quotes – if you remember them, they are online. One of the beauties of search engines – you can fill in a rough description and they will pop up with the correct answer:

When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

(And you don’t even need to spell them right, I never remember how to spell Exupéry, but I only need a rough guess)

I love quotes, I constantly butcher them or the authors name – but I do not need to remember them. I do rely on search engines to help me do this job. And if you think about it – why shouldn’t they?

It may show my great education and intellect if I can remember the exact quote and exact author – but I am no actor who has to deliver the lines in a production. ;o)

I did learn though that the quote I like about “freedom and death” does belong to Voltaire and not the other guy I was always confusing that with, because just searching for “freedom death defend” does not work well. But with Voltaire in the mix, it always pops up nice and easy for copy and paste. :))

Now, if only speech recognition would work nicer, we could start using sentences like
“Computer, search for quote …”

Technorati Tags: Quotes, using search enginges

Tags: tools