86-Year-Old Wins the Internet’s Heart With Her Extremely Polite Google Search

Eight-six-year-old May Ashworth typed the phrase “Please translate these roman numerals mcmxcviii thank you” into Google’s search bar in hopes of deciphering when a TV program was made.

Her grandson, Ben Eckersley, who came to visit her last week in her Greater Manchester home, discovered the searched phrase on her open laptop. He found the unusually polite Google search amusing and decided to immediately tweet a photo of the search on June 9.

“I asked my nan why she used ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and it seemed she thinks that there is someone – a physical person – at Google’s headquarters who looks after the searches,” Eckersley told the BBC. “She thought that by being polite and using her manners, the search would be quicker.”

Google’s main Twitter account responded to the tweet with “Dear Grandma, no thanks necessary,” while Google UK replied saying that “in a world of a billion searches, yours made us smile.”

 

Delighted netizens retweeted Eckersley’s post over 30,000 times and gave it almost 45,000 favorites.

“I feel a bit stupid really ’cause I did it that way,” Ashworth told CBC News. “I thought, well somebody’s put it in, so you’re thanking them.”

Ashworth said she’s not tech savvy and uses Google search rarely.

“I don’t know how it works to be honest. It’s all a mystery to me,” she said.