Silver lining to headline clichés

 Posted by on 26 February 2010  Modern Life
Feb 262010
 

So, knowing that the Canadian women curlers were playing a tough gold-medal match against Sweden — and that they were up against it in extra ends — but without any TV in my house, I checked a couple of websites to find out what the final result was.

Sadly for my patriotism, Canada lost 7-6 to Sweden.

Annoyingly, though, I clicked through three separate news sites that all had a variation on the same headline: “Settle for silver.” I guess they had to come up with something quickly — and at least they didn’t use “Silver lining” — but it still made a mockery of the idea of the Internet as a cacophony of different voices.

So I did a quick Google News search: “Settle for silver” and “Silver lining” each brought back a huuuuuge number of news articles — but crazily, they “… and 5,350 more” bit at the end was the exact same number. Does Google News max out at a certain amount of news?

So I checked “Good as gold.” Yup, precisely 5,350 more articles.

Weird. I refreshed it a couple of times, and the number changed, but each time I refreshed the page, the number changed slightly — but each search refreshed to the same number.

My favourite was when there was exactly 5,678 articles left. I felt like I was on the Sesame Street version of Google News.

So, the upshot? Either Google News arbitrarily stops searching after about 5,000 articles have been found, assuming (probably correctly) that you don’t need that much news, or frighteningly every single sports cliché is used exactly the same number of times.

I hesitate to Google “Gave it 110%”

Grant Hamilton

  • http://www.pennywise-books.com/ T. Keith Edmunds

    The whole “settle for silver” annoys me. They didn’t lose the gold, they won the silver.

    This idea that 2nd place is simply the first amoung the losers pisses me off. Winning silver is a huge accomplishment — there’s no “settling” about it…

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I see where you’re coming from, but in head-to-head sports like curling and hockey, you really do “lose” gold. That said, even a top-20 finish is a thousand times better than I could ever do — or most of us.

  • http://www.pennywise-books.com/ T. Keith Edmunds

    No, you fail to win gold, not lose gold. Losing gold implies that one had it in the first place. In the sports you mention, one team wins gold, the other silver.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I must respectfully disagree, unless you want to say that in every single game ever played in, say, hockey, there is no loser, you are simply a “second winner” when you lose the game.

    If you’re playing in the gold medal game, you can lose the gold.

    It’s less clear in, say a footrace.

  • http://www.pennywise-books.com/ T. Keith Edmunds

    But now you’re changing the parameters of the situation. If you and I were to arm wrestle, one of us would lose (me). Winner and loser, agreed.

    In the Olympic situation, there are numerous teams vying for the podium. They each play multiple games. In the end, there is a gold medal winner, a silver medal winner and a bronze level winner.

    With your viewpoint, the silver medal means nothing but “congratulations, you are the number one loser.” In reality, they worked hard and won second place. Ditto for the bronze (except, you know, they’re third best).

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    Not at all — in a game like hockey where every game is head-to-head, the gold-medal game is a win/lose proposition, no matter how many teams were vying to be there.

    Sure, the loser of the gold may also “win” silver, but they definitely lost gold.

    The more I think about it, the more I think it’s relative. You may win silver, but only in relation to the bronze winner and below. You lost the gold.

    This is especially true if you missed a shot (think curling or biathlon) and actually contributed to your own loss, rather than just not being fast enough in a race.

  • http://www.pennywise-books.com/ T. Keith Edmunds

    But then I could say that I lost the gold, too, as I lost any opportunity to get onto the Canadian Olympic team. Your logic is falling apart.

    You can’t lose something you didn’t have. They lost the game; they didn’t lose the gold.

  • Colin

    I’m with T Keith — you can’t lose something you never had.

    Silver medallists did not lose gold, they lost a gold-medal match. They never lost gold so much as lost the opportunity for one.

    An opportunity is not the same as the actual thing. If I buy a lottery ticket for $50 million, and I lose, did I lose $50 million?

    • http://www.pennywise-books.com/ T. Keith Edmunds

      Thank you for agreeing with me. Damn you for stealing my next argument…

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I’m baffled. I guess it comes down to a different view on sports and competition. But if there’s a gold medal on the line, I think you should go into the game believing that it’s yours already.

    If you don’t, well, I guess you’ll win a lot of silvers.

  • Colin

    I wake up every day believing that I’ve won $50 million or so…don’t make it so!