ZXWY

This is one of my favorite games. I start with a short string of letters, do a search, add a letter to the string, repeat until Google doesn't show any returns for the string.

Normally, with the first search string, somebody somewhere has an acronym made up of those letters. Even if you pick the most unlikely combo that you can think of, somebody is using it.

So that is what I will do today. The most unlikely set of four letters that I can think of are: ZXWY. I'll bet that there are at least hundreds of returns in the search results.

The real game is to see if you win (find zero search returns) before you get to seven letters. With these letters as our search term, we have a shot.

So let's do it.

Today's First Search Term: ZXWY.

Google reports over 34,000 returns for ZXWY.

The first return is from Who.is. They report that ZXWY.net is owned by BEIJING INNOVATIVE LINKAGE TECHNOLOGY.

The second return is on Trackitt.com about a guy from China who says that he is ZXWY. He wants to emigrate to America.

So, plenty of returns for ZXWY. Step Two is add a letter and try again.

Today's Second Search Term: ZXWYT.

Google shows only 355 returns; so we are making progress towards zero returns.

This search is a real oddity. This is the first time that all of the Top Ten returns are not in English. Most of them are not even European languages, although one might be Russian and another one might be from a Slavic country. Either way, I can't make heads or tails out of any of them.

So it's on to the third search.

Today's Third Search Term: ZXWYTP

Nine returns. Darn. If I want to get it down to zero, I will have to add the seventh letter. I lost the game. Let's see if I can escape with a little self-respect.

Today's Fourth (and hopefully last) Search Term: ZXWYTPF.

Dang, dang, and double dang. Google still shows two returns; although both returns are pages from the same site.

Dang, dang, dang.

Today's Very Humiliating Fifth Search Term: ZXWYTPFL.

Hooray, no returns. Google can't find any sites at all that include that search term.

I began this blog entry by saying I was going to use the most unusal letter combination I could think of. I did not think that I would have to use eight letters before Google would zero returns in the results. I do better than eight letters all the time. Boy, was I wrong about ZXWY being unusual.

As Granpappy Ike would have said, "Who would have thunk it?"