The Journolist

What the * ?

Good news from Google. According to Google Blog, the search machine's official weblog, you can now use the asterisk (*) as a wild card in your searches, inviting the machine to fill in the blank.

So if you create a query like this

"ship-shape and  * fashion"

Google will find phrases with various words filling the blank. And right at the top, of course, will be "ship-shape and Bristol fashion", from The Phrase Finder.

Wild cards like this can be very useful.