# Search?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [April 11, 2003, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008 "2003-04-11T11:57:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![guava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@guava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guava)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008/1 "2003-04-11T11:57:24Z")

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Before posting a question I had about corn oil, I tried to search the board to see if it’s already been discussed. when I type in corn AND oil, I get this warning “The search term you specified (oil) is under the minimum word length (4) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.”

How can I make this term longer???

Surely they don’t believe that all three letter words are inimportant. How would I find out about any of the following?:

big win  
red wig  
bad sex  
gay men  
pet owl

I could go on…

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**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008/2 "2003-04-11T12:12:01Z")

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Try searching for “corn oils” – I’ll think you’ll find what you need.

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**Author:** ![guava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71e660/32.png) [@guava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guava)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008/3 "2003-04-11T13:15:54Z")

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I did **leander** , and it does NOT give the same results as if I were able to search corn oil. For instance, the thread I started

[How much oil is in corn?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=175817&highlight=corn)

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008/4 "2003-04-11T13:22:58Z")

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I see your point; perhaps someone could help if they have bookmarked that thread we had a while back about bad gay sex with men who have a pet owl and a red wig?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008/5 "2003-04-11T13:27:55Z")

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Anyway, the reason it is this way is that indexing three-letter words would make the indexes very much larger, increase the workload of the server and (depending on how the thing works) possibly slow down **all** searches.

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**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/search/168008/6 "2003-04-11T15:20:44Z")

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Closed.