phrase needed

[Leonard Will]

In article <3462A13C.322F at fuse.net>, bruce pomerantz <brucep at fuse.net>
writes
>
>In boolean searching, what do you call the search strategy when you
>use one or more pairs in parentheses.  An example: 
>
>(Cats or Dogs) (Mice or Birds) 
>
I've heard these called "Chinese menu" searches, presumably on the
principle that you ask for

(boiled rice OR fried rice OR special fried rice) AND (sweet & sour pork
OR sweet & sour chicken) AND (braised cabbage OR steamed broccoli OR
etc...)

I think that Elisa Miller's suggestion of a "multiple concept" search is
clearest, because what you are looking for is the intersection of
several concepts, each of which may be expressed as one or more terms.

I find that almost every search I want to do is of this type, and I find
it very frustrating that so few WWW search engines allow me to express
it in this way. The worst ones are those which say "Just type your
enquiry in this box in your own words" without giving any control over
how the words will be processed. 

I don't think that this should be called a "nested search", as Donald
Barclay suggested: it would be better to keep that term to cases where
there are two levels of parentheses, one within the other, e.g. 

        rice AND (chicken OR (chestnuts AND pork))

Leonard Will
-- 
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