Search for phrase anomaly

E

Eric

Beta Tester
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Hi, Brandon and Friends on the forum. I'm wondering if what I'm seeing here is right, since I did not expect 1Sa 25:10 to be a hit when I searched for the phrase "many days". 1Sa 25:10 has "many servants now a days", but does not have "many days".

There are other hits farther down the list that also seem like they shouldn't have showed up (Ne 6:17, etc.).

many_days.JPG
many_servants_now_a_days.JPG
 
Last edited:
Looks right to me. The verse says "now a days" and your search term excludes the phrase "not many days" so it can still match.

Literally your search terms say:

Find verses that have the words "many" and "days" in them, but exclude verses with the phrase "not many days." The results I am seeing all match those criteria.
 
I thought that because I had chosen "Find verses with the exact PHRASE specified", that it would only find "many" and "days" when they were right next to each other in that order. Did the use of the ! operator affect that? If I search for "many days" and have the PHRASE option selected, it only finds the two words in that order one right next to the other.

So maybe I need to put "many days" in quotation marks, too… Then I get what I want. But that seems strange since then the results for the option "ALL of the words specified" is the same as for the option "exact PHRASE specified".
 
It's basically ignoring the "search method" since you already told it what phrase you want to search for. If your goal is to specify multiple phrases, you can certainly do that, but you need to consistently use the "quotes for phrases" if you do. The phrase search method is just an easy way for someone to say "find this phrase" -- once you start adding boolean operators and explicit phrases in quotes, that setting loses its meaning. When you need to get that refined, I'd recommend changing the search method to boolean expression and to declare what you want explicitly. So:

Search method: BOOLEAN EXPRESSION.
Search terms: "many days" ! "not many days"

Should exclude the three verses that say "not many days".
 
FWIW, if you use specific operators like phrases or boolean symbols in the main search bar, it will just default to doing a boolean style search that favors & (and). We're getting pretty technical here aren't we? :)
 
Thanks, Brandon. Now if only I can remember that! :) I don't mind it being technical, but I have to use it regularly to remember it.
 
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