# stubborn search function

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stubborn-search-function/196441>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [August 20, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stubborn-search-function/196441 "2003-08-20T14:29:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![green\_bladder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@green\_bladder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green_bladder)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stubborn-search-function/196441/1 "2003-08-20T14:29:37Z")

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Earlier today (in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=205853)), I tried to help **Stripysocks** find a thread in MPSIMS called “the quote…unquote game.” However, after inputting this into the search box and clicking ‘go’, absolutely nothing happens. I don’t even get transferred to the “Your search is in progress and you will be taken to the results” page. I try searching “quote”, “unquote”, “game” and “quote unquote”, yet nothing happens.

So obviously I input other words and phrases and… they all work, no problems whatsoever. I type in words that are more common that ‘quote’ and ‘unquote’ and I get results.

Eventually I found the thread, but only by looking through my entire history.

So what’s going on? Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stubborn-search-function/196441/2 "2003-08-20T15:52:54Z")

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I suggested an answer over in the MPSIMS thread, but to repeat it here: there’s a text file in vBB called #badwords. Its contents are not words banned by the board, as it might sound, but rather words that the search function won’t operate on. Contemplate results of a search for “that” or “been” for the reason why the file exists.

Now, every time anybody quotes another post or a cite, the word “quote” occurs between brackets in that file – and hence would show up in a search for text. So I strongly suspect that “quote” is one of the words in #badwords.

And if you do a search for a string that includes a word in #badwords, the search function simply ignores the word from #badwords, and produces results, if any, from the other word or words in your string.

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**Author:** ![green\_bladder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@green\_bladder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green_bladder)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stubborn-search-function/196441/3 "2003-08-20T16:20:23Z")

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Thanks **Polycarp** , that does indeed make sense. However, should this be happening when I input the word “game” ? Because that doesn’t seem to work for me either.