the buzz log
The Meaning Of It All
If life is about the quest for meaning, than the purpose of Search must be to help accelerate the hunt. Every week we see a wide variety of lookups for the meaning of objects, customs, sayings, and, of course, life.
We've broken down our findings into two sub-lists. The first covers concrete, answerable stuff like "what is the meaning of a lotus flower" (answer - estranged love) and "what is the meaning of the name shiloh" ("gift for him"). There's a nice mix of popular Latin and French sayings as well as some queries on text message slang and curious lookups for a hit Coldplay song...
| 1. | RSVP Meaning (Répondez s'il vous plaît) | 6. | Viva La Vida Meaning (The Life Lives) | |
| 2. | Carpe Diem Meaning (Seize the Day) | 7. | Namaste Meaning (I Get Out to You) | |
| 3. | LMAO Meaning (Laughing My A** Off) | 8. | FTW Meaning (For the Win) | |
| 4. | Meaning of 666 (The Devil's Number) | 9. | Bon Voyage Meaning (Good Journey) | |
| 5. | Semper Fi Meaning (Always Faithful) | 10. | C'est La Vie Meaning (That's Life) | |
Our second list consists of the existential questions that are also popular in Search (example: "what is the meaning of an eclipse?"). Despite being blessed with a collective IQ of 102 and a reasonably fast web connection, we couldn't dare answer any of these ponderings. Perhaps you'll have better luck?
Filed under: Definitions
Word Up
At a time when technology keeps shortening words to four letters or fewer, are dictionaries still meaningful? You betcha. Even when school's out (for most), searches for dictionaries are up 14% compared to this same period last year. Throw in foreign language look-ups, and the need to know goes up 18%.
Besides vocabulary, searches for medical dictionaries rose 63% compared to last year. And we thought "cyberchondria" was so last year. (No, that word isn't part of Merriam-Webster's new batch. Yet.) The Urban Dictionary remains the second most consulted specialty dictionary, but WDR, the lingo to know is text messaging, a newby search this summer. Wordsmiths also boosted Scrabble's dictionary, possibly thanks to a fabulous Facebook application... although look for a war of words with the official version launched Monday.
Among international languages, Spanish is still numero segundo (after English), despite its 10 percent drop in searches compared to last summer. Farsi (spoken in Afghanistan and Iran) has become the fastest rising newcomer among languages. More people are also trying their tongues in Hebrew, Russian, Hawaiian, and Tagalog than last year. Fo' real, bruddah.
| Top Searched Specialty Dictionaries, Past 30 Days | Top Searched Language Dictionaries, Past 30 Days | |||
| 1. | Medical | 1. | English | |
| 2. | Urban | 2. | Spanish | |
| 3. | Dream | 3. | Tagalog | |
| 4. | Rhyming | 4. | French | |
| 5. | Scrabble | 5. | Japanese | |
| 6. | Slang | 6. | German | |
| 7. | Legal | 7. | Chinese | |
| 8. | Bible | 8. | Latin | |
| 9. | Text Messaging | 9. | Russian | |
| 10. | Crossword | 10. | Arabic |
Filed under: Words, Languages, Dictionaries, Definitions
KITT, the GOP, and What It All Means
Sunday night, NBC broadcast the TV movie "Knight Rider," an updated sequel to the classic '80s series. The show dominated the ratings, stirred up buzz, and provoked one major question in searchers' minds: "what does kitt stand for"? Answer: "Knight Industries Three Thousand."
Meanwhile, voters from across the country have been hitting the Web in huge numbers to ask "what does gop mean." Response: Grand Old Party, a venerable term for the Republican Party. The Wall Street Journal stopped using the initials in 2002, saying that people don't know what "GOP" means anymore. That may be true, but the people seem interested in finding out.
A crime-fighting car and a right-leaning political organization aren't the only things sparking definition searches this week. A slew of acronyms, initials, terms, and Internet slang have incited lookups on what-does-such-and-such-mean. Here are the top 20. See if you can get them all...
Filed under: Definitions
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
For more detailed information, visit our FAQ.