X

What's 'she' doing in Google search?

A search for "she invented" turns up some interesting results.

Margaret Kane Former Staff writer, CNET News
Margaret is a former news editor for CNET News, based in the Boston bureau.
Margaret Kane

Google's search engine includes a spell-checker, and it may be getting the company into some hot water.

What's 'she' doing in Google search?

A search for the phrase "she invented" prompts this question from the search engine: "Did you mean 'he invented?'"

That query was picked up by bloggers, several of whom noted that similar "corrections" pop up with phrases like "she discovered," "she conquered," and "she saved." Searches for the male versions of those phrases did not prompt any corrections from the company.

It's likely that people at Google may have some explaining to do this weekend at their Mother's Day brunches.

Blog community response:

"The same, by the way, also applies for Google searches for 'she created,' 'she succeeded,' and 'she led.' Lest you think that this happens for all active verbs, Google does not make the same suggestion for 'she followed' or 'she failed.'"
--Balkinization

"From what we know Google's spell-checker at its core works on phrases which are popular on the web, as opposed to manual edits."
--Google Blogoscoped

"Why Google renders so? This case is not same in Yahoo, for this search term, Yahoo is providing proper results. What happened to our GOOGLE ? Lets Google it."
--B-Factor