Snickersnee

As mentioned previously, I like checking out Google Trends on a regular basis since you never know what's going to be the hot topic of the day. The #1 spot is currently held by the wonderfully fun word, "snickersnee."

What in the world is a snickersnee? Apparently, it is either a "large sword-like knife, especially one used as a weapon" or it refers to the actual knife fight itself. Perhaps most famously, it is used in the following lines from Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado:

The criminal cried, as he dropped him down,
In a state of wild alarm —
With a frightful, frantic, fearful frown,
I bared my big right arm.
I seized him by his little pig-tail,
And on his knees fell he,
As he squirmed and struggled,
And gurgled and guggled,
I drew my snickersnee,
My snickersnee!

Oh, never shall I
Forget the cry,
Or the shriek that shrieked he,
As I gnashed my teeth,
When from its sheath
I drew my snickersnee!

What's especially puzzling is why on earth this term was being searched for, peaking at around 12 p.m.? As of yet, I've not been able to determine why. If anyone else knows, feel free to leave a comment. If I do find out, I'll update.

Edit: Mystery solved! "Snickersnee" was the answer to a $50,000 question on today's Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Next task is to drop this to word into my conversations. :)

Google Trends

I’ve discovered Google Hot Trends recently and must confess I’ve become a little addicted to it. Google Hot Trends allows you to see what people are searching for on any given day. How does it work? According to the “About Google Trends” page, “Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like 'weather,' Hot Trends highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity, and updates that information hourly.”

With a listing of the 100 top searches on Google, you can get a rough idea of what’s going on in the news or what the hot topic is for the day. It’s really quite interesting to see what catches peoples’ curiosity (an ironic statement, I guess). For instance, let’s take a look at yesterday. I like to look at the previous day in order to have a full day’s worth of search data to peruse.

Any guesses on what the hot search item for Dec. 2, 2008 was? Perhaps some celebrities’ new hairdo (a la Katie Couric)? Nope. How about Obama’s cabinet member choices? Nope again.

Try Horatio Magellan.

Next question, who in the world is Horatio Magellan?!? And more importantly (at least, to an analyst like myself), what in the world would cause people to search for him? Ready for this?

Horatio Magellan is none other than the full name of that beloved, nautical commander of the sugar-laden seas, Cap’n Crunch. If his mother ever got angry with, she would apparently call out “Horatio Magellan Crunch!!” (he wasn’t Cap’n yet) Pretty cool name, if you ask me.

That brings us to the next question of what would cause people to search for the Cap’n’s full identity. Was it parents preparing to bring a lawsuit over nervous breakdowns due to cereal-induced, hyper active kids and needing to know who to cite? Give the answer in the form of a question and you’ll be spot on. What is Jeopardy? Correct! The answer on last night’s Final Jeopardy round quizzed the contestants on the full identity of the good Cap’n: “What cereal box spokesman has the first and middle names Horatio Magellan?"

There you have it, all courtesy of Google Trends. And just for grins and giggles, the #6 search was for the Fibonacci sequence. Google that for more information.