I'm not sure if this has been noticed before, but I just discovered that Google allows the '*' character as a wildcard -- a placeholder for any word. For example, the search for just three mice returns a bunch of links with the phrase "three mice", but three * mice returns links about "three blind mice". It also works for quoted phrases: "three mice", "three * mice".
Posted by Aaron Swartz on April 08, 2002 11:01 PM